


Fated: Season 4

by ddixons_angel



Series: Fated [4]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, The Walking Dead spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25815121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddixons_angel/pseuds/ddixons_angel
Summary: Gloria Rhee and her family settle into life at the prison after fighting the war with the Governor.Starts between Season 3 and 4, then follows the main storyline of Season 4 of The Walking Dead.**This is Part 4 of my Fated Series, please read the previous parts if you haven't already! ^^
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Fated [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828717
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

It’s been a month since the survivors won the war against the Governor. Rick had taken up farming with Hershel and they even built a pen for some wild piglets they had found in the woods. Daryl had helped him round them up and herd them into the prison fences. It was now peaceful within the prison, lively with the newcomers from Woodbury but peaceful. Sasha and her brother, Tyreese, had come with the Woodbury residents. They’d all set up a job system for everyone; some people assigned on watch, some on the fences to take care of the walkers that had gotten piled up so that the fences wouldn’t collapse from the weight. 

Carol and Gloria were in the kitchen near the main area of the cell blocks serving lunch to everyone. Another serving of Carol’s classic squirrel and rabbit stew, courtesy of Daryl’s hunting skills. Two girls from Woodbury happily bounce up to Gloria and Carol.

“Hello Lizzie, hello Mika.” Carol smiles at the two girls.

“Hello Carol and Gloria!” the girls speak in unison with a happy grin on their faces. 

Gloria chuckles at how cute they are then passes one of the filled bowls to Carol then goes on to fill up another one. The girls thank Carol and Gloria for the food then happily go over to their father. Glenn smiles as he walks over to the kitchen area, leaning on the counter. 

“So uh… Carol made this right?” Glenn says jokingly, teasing Gloria. 

“Rude. Okay, you aren’t getting any, this is for Maggie.” Gloria playfully eyes Glenn, taking a bowl away from him.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry! I was kidding!” Glenn pleas, reaching out for the bowl again.

“A word of advice, Glenn. Never mess with a woman in the kitchen.” Carol chuckles at him, shaking her head.

Glenn chuckles and nods, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Here, go eat.” Gloria gives him a second bowl filled with stew for Maggie. 

He takes the bowls and goes to the table where Maggie is sitting and sits down beside her. Another newcomer, Nina, walks up to the women this time.

“Good morning, Carol!” she smiles then tries to hide her grimace at Gloria, “and hi Gloria.”

“Good morning, Nina.” Carol says with a fake smile, handing her a bowl.

“Oh, can I get another one? I wanted to get a bowl for someone else too.” Nina smiles sweetly at Carol with pleading eyes. 

Not bothered with being ignored, Gloria hands her the second bowl and Nina murmurs a thanks then heads to one of the tables. Carol eyes Nina as she walks away then looks over at Gloria and nudges her with a disapproving look.

“What?” Gloria asks, confused.

“You better watch out for that girl.” Carol tells her, nodding pointedly in Nina’s direction.

Nina had sat herself down at Daryl’s table, sitting beside him and placing the second bowl in front of him. Gloria let out a breath, she knew exactly what Carol was saying and they both knew the new girl liked Daryl.

“She’s just being friendly, it’s fine.” Gloria says, not bothered at all. 

“I don’t think it’s that simple.” Carol frowns then leans in and whispers to Gloria, “I think you should keep an eye out for her, call it mother’s intuition, but there’s just something off about that girl.”

“Alright, I will.” Gloria says then looks at Carol and nudges her, “did you just adopt me without me knowing?”

“Please,” Carol scoffs, “I adopted you a long time ago.”

Gloria laughs with Carol and then sees that Sasha is on her way out the building. As she had eaten before, Gloria makes her way out with Sasha since they had their shift on the fences together. 

“So what’s the bet today?” Gloria asks as she catches up with Sasha.

Sasha slows down her pace until Gloria is walking along her side, “that you and I will kill most of them judging with who was placed on our shift.”

Gloria furrows her brows in confusion then Sasha gestures back towards the building and Gloria glances back to the building to see Nina coming out holding a pipe. Sasha had nothing against Nina, she just knew the girl was not a fighter, not when she was back in Woodbury and definitely not when she got to the prison with the others. 

“Well, this’ll be fun.” Gloria chuckles.

Sasha scoffs and rolls her eyes, “yeah, carrying the group is always fun.”

Gloria runs ahead to the fence first and unsheathes her dagger, stabbing a walker through the fence, “first kill!”

“First doesn’t always mean you’ll win!” Sasha chuckles and jabs a walker through the fence. 

The two continue to bicker competitively as they kill the walkers through the fence. Eventually, Nina gets to the fence and she also joins in stabbing the walkers, but not as quick as Gloria or Sasha. Even though Gloria and Sasha got off to a rocky start when they had first met, they’d become fast friends with their competitive nature. Sasha never blamed Gloria for not letting them into the cell block, understanding that it was for the safety of Carl and the others. 

Gloria was about to stab another walker through the fence when an arrow whistles through and pierces the skull, killing it instantly. A knowing smile creeps on Gloria’s face when she sees the arrow.

“That does not count as your kill.” Sasha teases beside her.

Gloria chuckles at Sasha’s words and yanks the arrow out from the walker’s skull, letting it fall to the ground. She turns around and as expected, sees Daryl walking towards her with his crossbow now slung behind his shoulder. 

“Show off.” Gloria calls out, wiping the arrow on her pants before handing it back to him.

“Thought ya needed help with that one.” Daryl teases, a side smile tugging at his lips. 

Gloria rolls her eyes and scoffs jokingly, “I had it handled, Mr. Dixon.”

Sasha chuckles behind her, “hey, are you two lovebirds gonna flirt all day or help?” 

“See what you did? Making me look lazy.” Gloria nudges him and stabs another walker through the fence, making Daryl laugh.

A whining cry from Nina captures their attention as she struggles with killing one of the walkers. Her pipe got stuck in the skull of a walker she had just killed. 

“D-Daryl, help me, please!” she whines. 

Being the way he is, Daryl goes to help her. He pulls the pipe out from the walker with one hand, looking rather effortless. Gloria had gone back to killing walkers through the fence. 

“Wow, Daryl, you’re so strong!” Nina gleams at him helping her. 

Sasha gawks at Nina then turns to look at Gloria, “how are you not bothered? You can **not** be okay with this.” she says in a whisper.

“Because,” Gloria starts then leans in and whispers to Sasha, “she can flirt all she wants but at the end of the day, Daryl’s mine and he knows that.”

“Oh wow.” Sasha chuckles, feeling quite proud of her friend’s confidence.

“Plus, you wanna take in how uncomfortable Daryl looks with her advances?” Gloria can’t help but point out that he’s been shifting on his feet, clearly not comfortable with how much attention Nina’s paying him.

Sasha glances and notices it too and laughs, nodding in agreement, “you’re right, you got nothing to worry about.”

Daryl comes back to Gloria once Nina is done bombarding him, “hey, Glenn wanted to do some meeting for tomorrow’s run.”

“I’m included?” Gloria looks over at him, yanking her knife out of a walker. 

“Yep.” is all he says as he walks back to the prison. 

—

Gloria had finished her shift with Sasha and Nina. Tyreese and a few others were in charge of taking the corpses to a designated area to burn. After getting cleaned up from her shift, Gloria came back out to the main area where Glenn and Maggie were already seated at a table with a map spread out. Gloria sat across from them and looked at the area Glenn had circled in red. Daryl came by and sat down beside Gloria, automatically snaking an arm around her waist. She smiles at him as Glenn starts to explain the plan.

“So this place used to be a really popular mall, I’ve driven past it before and it seems pretty overrun, but with the right team we can get a pretty good run out of it.” Glenn says, pointing to the circled area. 

“By the right team you mean…” Gloria ponders out loud while looking at Glenn.

“Us four.” Glenn tells her.

Gloria chuckles, “Glenn, if you wanted a double date, you could have just asked.” 

The others chuckle at her comment, “yeah yeah… well, jokes aside, I’m thinking we can enter the mall at opposite sides, clear it and meet in the middle. Maggie would be covering me, and Daryl covering Gloria. Scavenge what we can find and exit through the main doors.” Glenn explains, his hands guiding them through the map and the other smaller map Glenn had drawn to give them a good visual of the place. 

“So we’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning, that way we can make it back for dinner?” Maggie confirms.

“Depending on how it goes, we might even come back with dinner.” Daryl says.

“Speaking of dinner,” Glenn looks around the room, “where’s Carol?”

Gloria rolls her eyes, “I swear, you just ate.”

“I’m a growing boy!” Glenn grins cheekily at her, Maggie puts her hand to her face in slight embarrassment.

Daryl looks at Gloria with a smirk, “ya sure he’s older?”

“He is…” Gloria sighs jokingly. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

The next morning, Glenn, Maggie, Daryl and Gloria loaded up the car with their supplies to go on the run. They decided to just take one of the bigger cars rather than two separate vehicles. Once they had everything, they got into the car, Glenn in the driver’s seat with Maggie in the passenger, leaving Gloria and Daryl in the back. They drove off to the mall, Maggie keeping an eye on the map so that they didn’t get lost. 

“Here.” Daryl says as he hands Gloria a piece of paper that he fished out from his pocket.

Gloria furrows her brows together as she takes the paper, “what’s this?”

“Nina made a list of things she wanted us to get.” Daryl shrugs and looks out the window. 

Maggie turns around and looks behind her then reaches out to Gloria, “give it here, let’s see what she wants.”

Gloria glances at the paper then hands it to Maggie, she watches as the other woman frowns when she reads the list, “what, does she think we’re going on a shopping trip? I can understand face wash and even the hand cream, but come on, a handbag? Sunglasses? She doesn’t go anywhere outside the prison, what could she even need those for?”

Gloria chuckles at Maggie’s rant, “did she really ask for that?”

“She did… and seriously, heels?” Maggie turns around to look at Gloria with a bewildered face as she shows her the list, “heels?!”

“Are you kidding?” Gloria frowns, taking the list from Maggie and reading through it then chuckles at the last line of the paper, “aww, she gave Daryl a heart.”

“What?” Daryl frowns at her words as he looks at the list, reading the words ‘thank you Daryl’ on the bottom and Nina had drawn a heart beside Daryl’s name. 

He glances over at Gloria who’s grinning teasingly at him, “why are ya enjoyin’ this so much?”

Gloria shrugs, “I don’t know, feels like I’m watching some kind of high school drama. It’s rather amusing.”

“Ya find it amusin’ someone else wants me?” Daryl raises an eyebrow at her.

“Nope, I find her advances amusing.” she crosses her arms, “besides, I’m not even surprised she wants you.”

“And why’s that?” Daryl asks, trying to hide the smirk tugging at his lips.

“Because I’ve got amazing taste in men.” Gloria says winking at Daryl then looks out the window.

Her words cause Maggie and Glenn to chuckle, both shaking their heads as Daryl lets out a breath, looking out his side of the window, wanting to hide the blush creeping on his cheeks. He’d never admit it, but it always made Daryl’s heart flutter whenever Gloria spoke so confidently that he was hers and only hers. It made him feel secure and special, something he’s never actually felt before. 

The four of them finally arrive at their destination. Glenn had parked on the outskirts of the mall. Wanting to be obscure and hidden from others, they would walk the rest of their way. 

“Okay, me and Maggie will take that side.” Glenn says, gesturing over to the west side, “we’ll have a two hour timespan to get in and scavenge as much as possible. And if anyone runs into trouble, blow these.”

Glenn pulls out four neon colored whistles from his bag earning a chuckle from Gloria, “how long have you been waiting to use those?”

“Since I found them.” Glenn plays along with his sister’s teasing, and hands each of them a whistle then takes out his pocket watch that Hershel had given him, “it’s 10 right now, that gives us until 12 to meet back in the middle.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna have to leave before then,” Daryl says, nodding pointedly to the mall, “that clock up there’s gonna chime right when it hits noon, callin’ all walkers from a mile away right to us.”

Gloria adjusts the strap to her bag on her shoulders, “better get going then.” 

The four look at each other and share a nod before heading to the mall. According to plan, Glenn and Maggie take the west side while Gloria and Daryl take the east. Gloria dashes to the barricade of abandoned cars with Daryl following closely behind her, his crossbow loaded and ready to fire. She scans the area and sees a few stray walkers loitering the distance between them and the mall. 

“Daryl,” she whispers as she glances back at him to catch his attention, “I’m gonna run in and clear the area, you cover me?”

Daryl nods, “be careful.” 

Gloria smiles at him and nods before running off to the closest walker, she’d already taken out her daggers, ready to stab all and any walkers that come close to her. Daryl follows her closely, crossbow up and ready to launch a bolt at any walker that comes too close to Gloria but he doesn’t need to shoot as she kills each one with swift skill and precision. Daryl can’t help but smile at the sight of her ability, pride welling up in his heart. The two make their way to the east entrance of the mall, Gloria peers out from the corner of the wall to the glass doors and frowns at the amount of walkers on the other side of the doors. There had to be at least 20 to 30 walkers on this side alone. 

“We’re not getting through here.” Gloria says as she looks back to Daryl, a worried look on her face.

Daryl glances to the door closest to them and then looks around for a passageway into the mall, then points to the other set of glass doors a few meters down, “we can lead ‘em all to one door and go through the other.”

“No, the glass won’t hold all that weight, this is nothing like the glass at the C.D.C.” Gloria says, a thoughtful frown on her face.

Daryl smirks at her words, “Ya always thinkin’ back to the C.D.C.?”

Gloria rolls her eyes at his teasing, hiding her blush as she looks around, trying to find a way around the mass of walkers barricading the glass doors. That’s when she remembered that Glenn mentioned there was a Target in the mall and Gloria knew it would have an entrance into the mall from the outside. If they could get inside the store, they could lure the walkers roaming the mall into the Target and lower the metal gates from the inside, trapping the herd. 

“I have an idea, come on.” Gloria tells Daryl and runs off to the other corner of the mall. 

Trusting her, Daryl follows without saying anything. They make it to the other corner, not needing to deal with many walkers on the way. Just like Glenn had told her, the entrance to Target was right in front of them. Unlike the other glass doors, the doors into Target didn’t have many walkers roaming around inside, giving them an easy way in. Daryl carefully opens the door and they both sneak into the store after making sure the door to the outside was closed so they didn’t get swarmed both ways. 

Gloria and Daryl look at each other and nod, not needing words to communicate. Daryl goes off to scavenge whatever he deemed useful while Gloria looks at the signs, then heads off to the department labelled ‘Kitchen & Dining’. Ducking beneath the shelves so walkers on the other sides aren’t able to see her, she grabs a few kitchen timers and puts them into her bag. Gloria then runs off to the corner of the store, taking out a kitchen timer and sets it to go off in 30 minutes. She dashes to the other side of the store and does the same with another timer before going off to find Daryl. 

Taking anything of use and putting it into her bag, she finds Daryl in one of the aisles, “hey, we only have about 20 minutes before we need to get out of here.”

“Why 20? It ain’t even past the 1 hour mark yet.” Daryl furrows his eyebrows in confusion.

“You’ll know when you hear it.” Gloria tells him, then goes off to another aisle, wanting to make the most out of their time. 

Just like Gloria had planned, the first kitchen timer goes off, luring the walkers into one corner of the large store. Daryl’s ears perk up at the sound of the ringing, knowing that this was what Gloria was talking about then rushes off with his bag towards the exit. The ringing had also drawn walkers from the inside of the mall into the store. Gloria and Daryl meet each other near the inside entrance of the Target where Gloria looks towards the cashier terminals. 

“Daryl, cover me.” Gloria calls out.

Not giving him a chance to respond, she runs to the terminals and starts rummaging through the drawers to find the keys that control the metal gate control panels. Third times the charm as she searches through the third terminal and finally finds the keys. The whistle of an arrow drifts through the air as it pierces the skull of a walker that was close to Gloria as Daryl goes over to her, looking at her with a frown. 

“The hell are ya doin’?” Daryl asks, a hint of annoyance and impatience in his voice.

Gloria shows Daryl the ring of keys as the second timer goes off, luring the walkers to the other corner of the Target, away from the two. She signals him to follow her as she goes to the control panel located right by the border of the Target and the inside of the mall. Prying open the metal cover of the panel, Gloria finds the circular key and sticks it into the slot and turns it. A low hum begins as the metal gates start to descend from the top of the entrance. Seeing this as their sign to go, Daryl and Gloria exit the store, killing any walkers that had not made it into the store yet or had managed to come out before the gates closed shut. 

Looking back at the closed gate, Gloria smiles, happy that her plan worked. Thanks to the kitchen timers, the inside of the mall was now relatively walker free. Daryl looks at her in awe, smiling.

“How’d ya know where everythin’ was?” Daryl had to ask.

“Used to work at a Target before I got my internship.” Gloria tells him as she goes through her bag to find the bottle of spray pain she’d picked up in the ‘Home Improvement’ section.

Knowing what she wanted to do with it, Daryl holds his hand out for her to give it to him. He walks up to the metal gate, shaking the can before popping off the cap and sprays the words ‘DANGER INSIDE - DO NOT OPEN’ on it. 

“Anyone still opens it, they deserve what they get.” Daryl says, putting the cap back on the can and hands it back to Gloria. 

She chuckles as she takes it and puts the can of spray paint back into her bag. Daryl walks to her with a loving smile, gently lifting her chin up to face him with his hand.

“You’re amazing, ya know that?” Daryl says, then leans, giving her a soft kiss on the lips. 

Gloria smiles into the kiss, blushing at his words. It wasn’t very often Daryl would show this kind of affection, but whenever he did, it was always welcome. She looks away, shy, when he pulls away from the kiss. Just like Daryl, she never liked to show her shy side to anyone, not that she was ashamed. She knew that Daryl wouldn’t judge her, but she also knew that he would tease the hell out of her since she would do the same to him. Looking around, a large sign behind Daryl catches her eye.

“Daryl, look.” Gloria nods pointedly at the pharmacy she’d spotted. 

He looks behind him, following Gloria’s line of sight and sees the pharmacy. Not needing any more words, the two head to the pharmacy. It wasn’t the first time they rummaged through a pharmacy together, so they knew what to do. Daryl would take any bandages, gauze, and anything that would help patch up wounds while Gloria would go through the medicine. Jumping behind the counter, she grabs bottles after bottles of medicine, sorting through which ones the group would need most, not taking the ones that would be useful only in very specific conditions. 

Daryl’s instincts pick up some movement and sound from the outside and he stops his movements, glancing back, “ya hear that?”

Gloria glances up at him then back down at her task, “it’s probably just a lone walker, you saw how many there were before.”

Daryl nods but he’s still cautious as he continues to pack up the medical supplies. Once his bag is full, he whistles to Gloria, asking if she’s done yet. She hums happily as she zips up her bag then slings it over her shoulders, her bag rattling with bottles of medicine. Gloria walks out from behind the counter and meets up with Daryl at the door. She walks out first as he’s holding the door for her.

“I bet we got more than Glenn and Maggie.” Gloria chimes with a grin. 

Furrowing her brows together when she receives no response from Daryl, she turns around and all her happiness is replaced with fear and worry at the sight in front of her. Daryl was standing still, his crossbow in hand but not armed. A gun pointed to his head as three armed men surrounded him. 

“Don’t try anything unless you want his brains splattered on the floor.” the man pressing the gun to Daryl’s head threatens. 

“Okay, okay… just… don’t hurt him.” Gloria holds her hands up, surrendering, “what do you want?”

“We want your shit!” one of the men who had his gun pointed at Gloria speaks. 

“Your weapons too!” the third man, who also had his gun pointed at Daryl, snarls.

The first man, who seemed to be the leader of the pack, looks Gloria up and down then plants a smirk on his face, licking his lips, “you know what? We want you too.”

Daryl growls angrily at the man’s words, “don’t touch her!”

His words earn him a kick from the man behind him, making Daryl fall to his knees. The man comes up from behind Daryl and grabs his hair roughly, pulling him back as he presses the barrel of his gun to Daryl’s head. 

“Stop!” Gloria shouts, desperation in her voice, “y-you can take our stuff and our weapons. Just… please don’t… don’t hurt him!”

The leader laughs at her plea, “oh, how I always loved romantic tragedies, especially where the girl has to make a choice and sacrifices herself for her man. It’s just so… poetically sad and heartbreaking to watch.”

He twirls his gun in his hand as he speaks, then he grins maniacally at Gloria, “I’m gonna give you a choice. We can take your stuff and shoot him dead. Or! We take your stuff, and you,” he points his gun back at Gloria, “stab yourself with your own knife and we let you go without anyone dying!”

Gloria glares at the man as he waltzes up to her and pulls one of her daggers out from her belt, handing it to her with a mocking grin. 

“The choice is yours,” he walks backwards when Gloria takes the dagger from him, watching the spectacle he had just created before him. 

She looks at the dagger then at Daryl who was already staring at her, he shakes his head as soon as they make eye contact, pleading her silently not to do it. Tears well up in Gloria’s eyes, there was no way she would let Daryl die. She heaves a deep breath as she closes her eyes, then opens them to look at the leader.

“I get to choose where?” Gloria asks, pursing her lips to put up a strong front.

“You’re in charge of the situation, sweetheart.” the leader smirks, waving his hand theatrically. 

Gloria lets out a breath before turning the blade inward. Her action earning a grunted ‘no’ from Daryl, the man holding him back tugs roughly at his hair again, yelling at him to shut up. She guides the tip of the blade to a section of her abdomen, she knew that area wouldn’t do any fatal damage if pierced, there were no vital organs in that area. Gloria’s other hand goes to hold the blade as she lets out a shaky breath, holding the blade stable in both her hands. She tries to ignore Daryl’s calls to her, begging her to stop.

“Gloria!” Daryl yells.

His voice is chorused with gunshots firing, just before Gloria was about to do the damage to herself. Both men holding them at gunpoint had fallen to the ground, dead. Leaving the leader in a panicked state as he looks around to his fallen friends. He raises his gun to Daryl only to be shot in the back of the head, but not before squeezing his own trigger, shooting Daryl in the shoulder as he falls to the ground. 

“Daryl!” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

Letting the dagger fall out of her hands, Gloria runs over to Daryl as he falls from the gunshot. She kneels down next to him, letting him lean back against her. Daryl groans at the pain in his shoulder and Gloria grabs his bag with the bandages they had scavenged earlier. 

“Here, let me.” Gloria says, her voice soft.

She gently moves the collar of his shirt to the side to inspect the wound, relief flooding through her when she sees that it was only a graze to his shoulder. Gloria starts to patch up his wound when Glenn and Maggie run up to them, holding their rifles with worried expressions.

“Hey, you guys okay?” Maggie asks, a little out of breath.

Daryl nods as Gloria finishes up with his injury, “yeah, we’re okay.”

He gets up from the ground with Gloria holding his arm, she’d also picked up his crossbow, refusing to let him hold the weapon when he was hurt. Glenn picks up Gloria’s dagger she had dropped then looks at his pocket watch.

“It’s gonna be 12 soon, we should get going.” he calls out to the rest of them.

The others nod and pick up their bags and start heading back out to where they had parked the car. Glenn opens the trunk to the car and places his bag inside, waiting for the others to do the same with their bags. He slams the trunk closed then hands Gloria her dagger back but not without shooting her a scolding look. Gloria sighs, knowing exactly what this was about then goes to join Daryl in the back seat of the car. Glenn starts the car and the group is silent on the drive back to the prison. Throughout the ride, Glenn keeps glancing in the rearview mirror to Gloria when he isn’t able to hold it in any longer.

“ _What the hell was that?_ ” Glenn blurts out in Korean, causing all three of the others to look at him, Maggie and Daryl’s faces full of confusion.

“ _What?_ ” Gloria rolls her eyes as she replies in Korean, annoyed that he’s choosing to do this now.

“ _I saw you, you were going to stab yourself! What the hell was that?!_ ” Glenn fumes, getting visibly more angry. 

“ _What choice did I have? They were going to kill him!_ ” Gloria retorts, referring to Daryl.

Maggie looks back and gives Daryl a ‘what do we do’ look and Daryl shifts and shrugs at her as the siblings keep fighting. It didn’t help that they didn’t know what they were even saying so they couldn’t diffuse the situation either. 

“ _You were gonna kill yourself then, is that it? What if we didn’t come in time to save you, you could be seriously hurt right now!_ ” Glenn yells as he drives. 

“ _I knew what I was doing!_ ” Gloria yells back, done with this conversation.

“ _No you didn’t! You were going to kill yourself to save someone else!_ ” he points out, his face turning red.

“ _And you would have done the exact same for her!_ ” Gloria calls him out, referring to Maggie, knowing it’s true. 

Glenn grips tightly on the steering wheel, fuming from their argument but says nothing else. Sensing that it was the end of their heated discussion, Maggie reaches out and puts her hand on Glenn’s arm, a soft smile on her face wanting to somehow soothe him without words. Gloria turns her attention to Daryl, he’d been looking out the window while chewing on his thumbnail. She sighs at his habit, knowing he only did it when he felt really uncomfortable. She reaches out to him, taking the hand of the thumb he’d been chewing.

“You okay?” Gloria asks in a hushed whisper.

Daryl nods, looking at her, squeezing her hand in reassurance. Glenn waits for Carl to open the gate to the prison before driving onto the premises, towards the building. Once the car is parked, the four of them get out of the car, Glenn and Gloria glaring at each other. 

“You’re **not** going on anymore runs.” Glenn tells her in English before popping open the trunk and taking a few bags with him into the building.

Gloria, still annoyed and angry at him, rolls her eyes and grabs the remainder of the bags from the trunk, slamming it down to a hard close before following Glenn into the building. Maggie and Daryl share a look of not knowing what to do before they both follow the siblings into their home. 

Hershel greets Glenn with a smile when he sees him walk into the main area outside the cell block but his smile is replaced with a confused frown when he notices Glenn and now Gloria’s expressions. The two had put the bags on one of the tables, both crossing their arms and looking away from each other. Daryl and Maggie make their way into the room, everyone’s attention drawn to the four who had just walked in. 

“Maggie, what happened?” Hershel asks, turning to his daughter as he knows he wouldn’t be getting a proper answer from either sibling. 

“We ran into some thugs on our run and they tried to steal Gloria and Daryl’s things.” Maggie explains.

The story causes Carol to walk up to the group, “are you all okay?”

Daryl nods but Gloria looks at him, guilt written all over her face, “Daryl… got shot.” 

“What?!” Nina pipes up and rushes over to him, “oh my God, are you okay?”

“‘M fine.” Daryl says, backing away from Nina before she can touch him, “was jus’ a graze.”

“Hershel, can you check on him?” Gloria says and adds before Daryl can protest, “I was an emotional mess when I patched him up, I just want to make sure.” 

Daryl sighs at her words, and Hershel nods, both of them understanding, “come with me, Daryl.”

Hershel starts walking first and Daryl hesitates until he catches Gloria’s eyes, giving in when he sees her eyes welling with tears. He walks past her to follow Hershel, but not before giving her a small hug and a kiss on her forehead. The group had turned the infirmary into an actual doctor’s office rather than having Hershel, Gloria or Caleb, a doctor from Woodbury, check on people in their cells. Carol goes up to Gloria and puts a hand on her shoulder for comfort. Gloria forces a small smile for the older woman, nodding at her. 

“So, how did you guys get caught up with the thugs anyway?” Sasha asks, genuinely curious, leaning on the wall.

“We split up to cover more ground, and they ambushed me and Daryl when we were done raiding a pharmacy.” Gloria says, looking down feeling ashamed of being so careless. 

“Daryl wouldn’t get caught off guard like that, it must have been your fault.” Nina says, glaring and pointing at Gloria, “you distracted him.”

“That’s not how Daryl is!” Carol says, frowning at the other girl.

“Really? Then tell me how on every single run Daryl goes on, he comes back perfectly fine but the **one** time he goes with Gloria, he gets hurt?” Nina counters Carol’s defense. 

Sasha scoffs at her, crossing her arms, “you wanna know why? Because shit happens. It doesn’t matter if it’s his first time going on a run with or without Gloria.” 

“Why are you so adamant on blaming her, anyway?” Carol takes the chance to call Nina out on her actions.

“Because I know that Daryl isn’t careless or reckless, but I can’t say the same about her!” Nina shouts. 

Her words hit Gloria like a brick. She thinks back to when they were scavenging the pharmacy, Daryl had already tried to warn her about hearing something outside but she just brushed him off. If she had listened, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten hurt. 

“She’s right… it was my fault.” Gloria sighs, looking down, not able to face any one of them.

Carol’s eyes soften as she looks at Gloria, “no, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, Carol, it was.” Gloria finally looks up at her, “I… Daryl warned me that he heard something when we were in the pharmacy but I… I didn’t listen…”

Nina hides a smirk as she scoffs, “I don’t think you should go on any more runs, for everyone else’s safety.”

“That’s not for you to decide.” Carol says, eyeing Nina. 

“Glenn already decided that when we got back.” Gloria says in a small voice, making Carol turn her attention to Glenn, looking at him disapprovingly.

“I-I… that’s not what I meant!” Glenn stutters to defend himself. 

Gloria shrugs, trying to play it off, “it doesn’t matter… I should go tend to my shift.” 

Glenn watches helplessly and guiltily as Gloria walks out the building to go to her ‘shift’ on the fence. They all knew that she didn’t have a shift, when she agreed to go on the run, she’d passed them off to Tyreese. She just wanted to be alone, let out her emotions by killing some walkers. Gloria spends at least an hour killing walkers on the fence when Daryl approaches her. He doesn’t call out to her or anything, he watches for a moment then starts to help her clear out the walkers on the fence. She turns to him when she notices he’s out there with her.

“You shouldn’t be out here, you need to rest.” Gloria holds his forearm, stopping him from moving.

“Told ya, ‘m fine. It’s jus’ a graze anyway, ya saw it.” Daryl says, “‘nd ya shouldn’ be out here either, ya don’ have a shift.”

Gloria sighs and nods, “I know…” 

Daryl places his hand on the one that’s already on his forearm, he hesitates to speak then sighs, “Glenn’s right… I don’ want ya going on runs anymore either.”

There’s a tear at her heart at his words. The realization that Daryl had blamed her for getting hurt weighed heavily on her and there was only one thing she could really do about it. 

“Okay…” Gloria says, looking down and nodding.

Daryl furrows his brows in confusion; acceptance was not one of the reactions he’d expected from her. He expected her to get mad at him like she did with Glenn. He had been dreading an argument with her over the restriction. Her accepting it so easily was not like her, and even though they weren’t yelling at each other, Gloria being so quiet and compliant worried him even more.

“Ya sure you’re okay with not going on runs anymore?” Daryl asks, his thumb caressing her knuckles.

Of course she wasn’t, but she’d caused enough.

“Yeah…” Gloria sighs and forces a smile on her face as she looks up at Daryl, “it’s for the best, right?”

He gently grabs her arm and pulls her towards him, wrapping his arms around her, cradling the back of her head in his hand. Gloria snuggles into his embrace, snaking her arms around his torso. 

“I just want ya safe.” Daryl whispers in her ear.

Gloria just nods, accepting it although she knew he was using her safety as an excuse to comfort her. For the sake of everyone else who went on runs, she wouldn’t go on runs anymore. That’s how she would be able to protect her family, it was the only way she knew she wouldn’t cause any more damage. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

A few days after the run, Gloria was up in the watch platform for her watch shift. She’d taken more shifts than usual, not wanting to stay cooped up inside. She wanted to do more for the group if she wasn’t going on runs anymore. In the middle of her shift, Carol comes up to join her, keeping her company.

“I knew I had a bad feeling about Nina.” Carol says, crossing her arms as she refers to the other day.

“She was right though.” Gloria shrugs it off.

“No, she wasn’t. She’s just trying to turn everyone against you!” Carol frowns at Gloria.

“Well, she wasn’t wrong.” Gloria sighs and looks at Carol, “it was my fault we got caught off guard in the first place, even Daryl knows it.”

Carol’s eyes soften at her words, “Sweetie… Daryl doesn’t blame you for what happened.”

“Yes, he does… he told me the day we came back that he doesn’t want me going on any more runs because of it.” Gloria says, looking up at the sky to prevent her tears from falling.

Not believing it, Carol frowns, “did he actually say that was the reason?”

Gloria shakes her head at her question, “he didn’t need to.”

“Then that probably isn’t what he meant.” Carol tries to convince Gloria but she shakes her head again.

“Carol… I know what I did was stupid. Not listening to Daryl when he clearly heard something outside was stupid, you know that too.” Gloria replies, wiping her eyes. 

“Yes, it was stupid, I’m not going to lie about that. But that doesn’t mean I blame you for what happened.” Carol argues, hating that Gloria was blaming herself, “and it doesn’t mean that Daryl or Glenn blame you for it either.”

“Then why wouldn’t they want me on runs anymore?” Gloria retorts.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” Carol’s mother-bear side was coming out as she turns around to go confront the boys but Gloria calls out to her.

“Don’t. There’s no need for that,” Gloria says, making Carol glance back at her, “I don’t want to go on runs anymore anyway…” 

This part was true, partly. Gloria had given it some thought over the past few days when she couldn’t sleep at night even with Daryl lying beside her. She liked going out with the groups, but over recent events she felt better staying back at the prison. She didn’t want to put anyone else in danger because of her being stupid or careless. 

Carol purses her lips, “well, that’s your choice. But I’m going to find out for myself if that’s what both Glenn and Daryl meant.”

Turning back around, Carol makes her way to the door, Gloria didn’t try to stop her this time. She only watches as her friend leaves her alone. Gloria was grateful for Carol always defending her and having her back, but she also wanted Carol to realize that some battles she shouldn’t help her fight and this was one of them. In Gloria’s mind, it was just a waste of time as she only saw herself to blame for everything that went wrong on that run. 

Carol made her way to Cell Block C and found Glenn and Daryl standing on the stairs to the upper level. The boys were discussing some plans and vaguely complaining about Rick giving up his leader position to be a farmer. Daryl is the first to notice Carol and he nods at her in greeting while Glenn looks over and smiles at her, waving a hand at her. Carol doesn’t smile back at either of them and just crosses her arms, frowning at both of them. 

“Is… something wrong?” Glenn hesitates to ask.

Without hesitation, Carol jumps into her interrogation, “why did you both tell Gloria you don’t want her on runs anymore?”

Daryl and Glenn share a look then both sigh in unison, Daryl uncrossing his arms and he fidgets with the hem of his shirt. 

“You weren’t there, Carol, you don’t know what happened…” Glenn starts, only to be cut off by Carol.

“Well then you should tell me.” Carol retorts, matter-of-factly.

“The assholes held us by gunpoint and gave her a choice. Either they kill me or she stabs herself.” Daryl explains. 

Carol frowns at this new information, “what?”

“She was gonna do it! I saw her holding that knife to herself, Carol… and if we… if we came any later…” Glenn trails off as he replays the scene in his mind, getting emotional.

“That’s her… always sacrificing herself for others.” Daryl says looking down at the steps, “tha’s why we can’t have her on runs anymore, she’d end up hurt for other people.”

Carol nods in agreement then sighs, “you both better tell her that then, because she’s up there on that watch platform thinking you’re both blaming her for what happened, especially after what Nina said to her.”

“That’s just like her to blame herself for everything…” Glenn sighs then looks at Daryl, “I’ll go first… we haven’t talked since that day and I still need to apologize for yelling at her.” 

Daryl nods then pats Glenn’s back as he goes off to find Gloria in the watch platform. Carol looks at Daryl as she leans on the railing of the stairs. Catching her look, he shifts uncomfortably as she stares at him without saying anything.

“What?” he blurts out.

“You two are made for each other with your self-deprecating and self-blaming ways.” Carol finally cracks a smile at him.

Daryl scoffs and rolls his eyes at her words, though he had to admit that he thought the same thing. Gloria was a lot like him when it came down to how they thought about themselves. Although, he never understood why Gloria would think so little of herself. In Daryl’s eyes, she was perfect. Beautiful, smart, and a fighter. Truthfully, he’d never understood why he was the one she chose out of everyone else. She could have anyone she wanted, but she chose him. 

—

Glenn makes his way up the stairs to the watch platform and opens the door to see Gloria sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking out to the courtyard. She glances over to the door when she hears it open then looks back to the courtyard. She wasn’t even sure if she was still mad at him for yelling at her when he did or if she was just ashamed at this point. Glenn walks up to her and sits down beside her.

“Hey…” he sighs, “I’m sorry for yelling at you in the car and telling you not to go on runs anymore.”

“You’re sorry you said it, but you still meant it.” Gloria calls him out straightforwardly. 

“Yes, I meant it, but it’s not because I blame you for what happened, you gotta know that.” Glenn tells her, putting his hand on her shoulder, making her look at him, “you really need to stop doing that, blaming yourself. It’s a bad habit you gotta break.”

“How can I not blame myself when it was my fault? I should have been more careful and cautious.” Gloria sighs, “Daryl thinks the same way.”

“Daryl’s gonna talk to you later about what he thinks.” Glenn informs her, Gloria hums in acknowledgement, “I’m still sorry I yelled at you, I know I should have waited until we were back home and talked to you about it instead.”

”Yeah, you should have, instead you yell at me in front of both Daryl and Maggie then avoid me like the plague,” Gloria mutters, “am I really that scary when I’m mad at you?”

“Have you seen yourself when you’re mad?” Glenn teases with a slight chuckle.

Gloria rolls her eyes at this, “Glenn, no matter how mad I am at you, I’d never hurt you, you know that, right? Even when I say I’ll beat you up, you know I can’t.”

“I know,” he smiles warmly at her, “but it’s not me I’m worried about. The last thing I ever want to see is you getting yourself hurt. You’re my baby sister and I love you.”

Gloria finally smiles at him and nods, “I know, I love you, too.”

The siblings sit in silence as they look out into the courtyard together. Glenn’s glad that she isn’t mad at him for yelling at her and he knew that deep down Gloria understood that it’s because he cares a lot for her. He looks at her thoughtfully and decides to ask her a question he’s been dying to know even before the world fell apart.

“Why do you always do that?” he asks.

Gloria looks at him, “what?”

“Blame yourself for things that aren’t your fault.” Glenn finishes his question.

“How can I not when that’s all Gena ever did to me…” Gloria chuckles bitterly at the memories, “maybe she was right every time.”

“You know that’s not true, you know how she can be.” Glenn sighs, patting her knee. 

Gloria just nods, then looks at Glenn, “do you ever think about her? And mom and dad?”

“I try not to…” Glenn answers, “do you?”

“I do…” she nods.

“You think they’re still alive somewhere?” Glenn dares to ask, a sadness in his voice.

Gloria takes a deep breath, “if dad’s alive, then mom is too. He’d protect her with everything he’s got.” 

Glenn smiles softly and nods in agreement, “Yeah… what about Gena? You think she’s still around?”

“Oh yeah, definitely.” Gloria scoffs her answer almost instantly, “that woman is going to try anything to make sure she outlives me. She has the power to get whatever the hell she wants and I don’t see Gena as a person who would ever want to stop living.”

Glenn laughs at her answer, then remembers something. He reaches into his pocket and takes something out. He reaches out and nudges Gloria’s arm with the hand holding something in it. Gloria looks over, a confused frown on her face as she takes whatever he’s holding. She looks at the item in her hand and smiles at the silver necklace with a letter G pendant strung on it. 

“Where’d you get this?” Gloria asks, curiously.

“Looked through a jewelry store on our run and found them,” Glenn hooks his finger into the necklace he’s already wearing to show Gloria, “got one for Gena too.”

Gloria eyes him playfully, “we were out there gathering supplies, why were you going through a jewelry store?”

Blushing, Glenn leans in and whispers to her in Korean, “ _I was looking for a ring._ ”

Gloria’s eyes widen at his words, “ _you’re gonna propose?!_ ” 

Glenn grins and nods then Gloria nudges him, sharing his grin, “well? Show me what you got.”

“I couldn’t find anything, apparently the first thing people thought was important to loot were the rings in the jewelry store.” Glenn tells her.

“Wow, those people really know where their priorities lie.” Gloria says sarcastically, then she nudges Glenn, “don’t worry, you’ll find the perfect one for _sister-in-law._ ” 

Glenn chuckles at the Korean endearment for Maggie and nods, “yeah, I know.”

—

It was late in the evening, Gloria was in the cell she and Daryl shared folding some clean clothes. The two had decided to move into a cell together for privacy now that there were more people living in the prison. Gloria was only fine with sleeping in a cell if Daryl was with her, she had found that out the hard way when he went out on a hunting trip and she had a horrible nightmare about Tomas as a walker chasing after her endlessly. She’d woken up in a cold sweat, panting. Ever since then, she’d refused to sleep alone in a cell. 

Gloria’s back was turned to the door of the cell when Daryl came back. She was humming a tune to herself, bringing a small smile to Daryl’s face as he walks into the cell and wraps his arms around her waist, hugging her from behind. Gloria lets out a faint gasp from the sudden hug but smiles at the rare sign of affection. 

“It wasn’ yer fault.” Daryl whispers into her ear. 

Gloria sighs softly at his words, “Daryl…” 

“Ya can’t blame yerself every time somethin’ goes wrong.” Daryl says before she can continue speaking. 

She turns around to face him, his hands still resting on her waist, “I should have listened to you instead of brushing you off… if only I listened you wouldn’t have gotten hurt, even if it was just a graze.”

Daryl moves his hand from her waist to her cheek, caressing her skin with his knuckles, “then I should’ve kept pressin’ on it, tha’s on me.”

“Don’t do that…” Gloria says, letting out a breath.

“Shh…” Daryl leans in and kisses her lips gently, “if ya blame yerself ya gotta blame me too, me an’ Glenn never blamed ya or anything, shit happens all the time.”

“Then why’d you tell me not to go on runs anymore?” Gloria questions.

“Ya were willing to hurt yerself for me.” Daryl says, his voice full of emotion, “I can’t have that… I just want ya safe.” 

Gloria nods, understanding and accepting where he’s coming from. He only wanted her to be safe, the exact same thing she wanted for him. Deep down, although she’d never admit it, she felt that there was some truth to what Nina had said about her being a distraction to Daryl. On his own, Daryl would be focused on himself and keeping himself safe, but when he was with Gloria, he’d be focused on keeping her safe and looking out for her. 

“You’re really keeping me locked up in a prison now, Dixon?” Gloria chuckles. 

He smiles at her, “ya’ve been imprisoned in my heart for a long time.”

Gloria gawks at Daryl when she registers his words, “You…. have been spending **way** too much time with Glenn.”

Daryl laughs and pulls her into his arms, holding her close, “maybe.” he mumbles. 

She giggles and snuggles into his chest. Knowing the real reason why her brother and Daryl had told her to stop going on runs soothed her. Perhaps, she really was overthinking it and giving into her inner demons. Maybe she really did need to listen to Glenn and break her bad habit. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

For the last few days, the ex-residents of Woodbury had been asking Glenn and Daryl to make a run back to Woodbury to get some of the things they left. They’d been telling them about their infirmary that should be stocked with their medical supplies. The kids had even been chiming in, asking them to pick up some of their toys they left behind. After discussing it with Daryl, Glenn decided that they would go back to Woodbury and take a look for anything useful back in the town. The two set out for the run, bringing along Sasha and Tyreese as they had experience outside the prison and they resided in Woodbury for a time so they could guide Glenn and Daryl where to look. **  
**

Gloria was on her shift at the fences, taking out walkers with her daggers. Since both Tyreese and Sasha had left on the run with Daryl and Glenn, she was the only one on her shift. Maggie was on watch and Carol was busy watching the kids in the library. Gloria had taken it upon herself to take care of the bodies of the walkers she had killed. As she walks to get the car, Nina meets up with her halfway.

“Hey, you going somewhere?” she asks, sounding genuinely curious.

“Burning the walker bodies.” Gloria tells her as she doesn’t stop walking to the trucks.

Nina follows her, “you’re going alone?” and Gloria hums a yes, “I’ll come with you, we aren’t supposed to leave the prison alone anyway.”

Gloria slows her pace and looks at Nina, “you don’t have to, I can do it myself.”

“I want to help, okay? Please? Plus, I want to make it up to you for making you feel bad the other day.” Nina looks down to the ground.

“Alright, come on, we’re taking the blue truck.” Gloria tells her after pondering for a moment, then starts making her way again to the vehicles with Nina following her. 

Gloria gets into the driver’s seat as Nina climbs into the passenger’s seat. She drives the truck to the gate of the courtyard, driving it through with Karen’s help as she opens and closes the gate. She honks the horn lightly to call Carl to open the main gate for her and he does it quickly, then closes it as soon as the truck is outside. With Nina’s help, Gloria collects the bodies of the walkers outside the fence into the truck and they proceed to drive to the designated area to burn the bodies. 

Putting the truck into park and turning off the engine, Gloria jumps out the truck and starts to move the bodies from the truck into the hole that was pre-dug. Nina follows her actions and does the same. Once the back of the truck is empty of walker bodies, Gloria lights the bodies in the hole on fire. The flames crackle for a while before Gloria douses it, shoveling dirt into the hole to prevent any walkers from being attracted to the light and sound of the fire. 

“Alright, done!” Gloria lets out a breath of relief, then looks to Nina, “come on, let’s go back.”

Nina smiles back but then looks behind Gloria and lets out a scream. She then turns and starts running away into the woods. Expecting a herd of walkers behind her, Gloria spins around with her hands ready to pull out her daggers from her belt, however she sees nothing but forest. Frowning in confusion, she looks in the direction Nina had run.

“Nina!” Gloria calls out as she chases after the other woman, “Nina, there’s nothing there, it’s okay, you can come back.”

She searches for her in the woods until she comes across a cabin where she sees Nina panting, breathless from running. Nina seems to be startled by Gloria coming out of the woods as she fumbles back then lets out a sigh of relief when she sees that it’s only Gloria.

“What was that about?” Gloria asks, frustrated that Nina made her chase her out here for nothing.

“I thought I saw something behind you.” Nina says innocently. 

“Well, there wasn’t anything. Come on, let’s head back to the truck.” Gloria says as she turns around.

“Wait! Shouldn’t we check out this cabin?” Nina calls out to her, making Gloria turn back around.

She glances at Nina then at the cabin. It seemed pretty sturdy, the windows were dirty from the outside grime but were still intact. She takes a few steps closer to the cabin to peek into the windows, her back now to Nina. It seemed clean and secure, but Gloria wasn’t about to rummage a cabin in the middle of the woods with Nina. She was not an experienced fighter and if anything happened, Gloria would have to fight for the both of them.

“We should tell the others abou- ah!” Gloria’s words are cut off when she feels a sharp pain on the back of her head, making her fall to the ground, her vision blurring as she looks up at Nina. 

The last thing Gloria saw before she blacked out was Nina holding a rock and a sick grin on the woman’s face. 

—

Groaning and wincing at the pain throbbing in her head, Gloria opens her eyes and finds herself tied to a chair. She looks around and realizes that she was in the cabin Nina had supposedly stumbled upon. Well, that was bullshit. Gloria tugs at her restraints but stops when she hears footsteps coming from behind her.

“Awake already?” Nina cooes as she walks in front of Gloria. 

Gloria looks at Nina warily, noticing that her clothing and hair were messy, disheveled, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m just getting rid of you,” Nina says with a smirk, “I’m going to kill you and leave absolutely no trace of you.”

“You know you’re never gonna get away with this. The hell are you going to tell the others when you get back and I’m not with you? Maggie saw us leave together and so did Carl.” Gloria argues, Carol was definitely right about her.

To Gloria’s dismay, Nina chuckles, “Oh, of course I know that. I’ll just tell the others that you, being the super selfless person you are, sacrificed yourself to save little ol’ me. We got swarmed by a herd and you caused a distraction, allowing me to run. And they’ll believe it because that definitely sounds like something Glenn’s baby sister would do.”

Gloria mutters a curse under her breath. She had actually come up with something the group might even believe. She remembers the other day when Carol told her about the conversation she had with Glenn and Daryl. Nina must have overheard and come up with this plan. 

“Stop this!” Gloria shouts, “Glenn and Daryl are going to find out about this and so will Rick, none of them are going to let this slide. You really think they’re that stupid to believe your story?”

Her only play now was to scare Nina into thinking her plan wouldn’t work and that they’d see through it. She had to stop Nina from doing whatever it was she planned or else Gloria might not make it out alive. 

“Nuh uh, they’ll be grieving too much when they find your body all torn up,” Nina prances around the cabin, “and that’s when I’ll find Daryl, comfort him in his saddest moment, and then he’ll be mine!”

“You’re willing to become a murderer just for a guy?” Gloria could not believe that she was caught up in some sort of psycho love triangle and she was about to die for it.

“He’s not just **any** guy. He’s Daryl!” Nina glares at her, her eyes flare up in anger, “I love him and I’ll do **anything** for him! I’ll prove it!”

That’s when Gloria hears the snarling from outside. She looks at the dirty windows and sees a mass number of walkers just outside the cabin. 

“Listen, you don’t want to do this.” Gloria starts, “there’s an actual herd outside the cabin and you’re going to need me to fight them, you’re not getting back to the prison without me, not with all those walkers out there.”

“You’re right, I do need you…” Nina says but then smirks, “but not to fight, I just need you to distract them so I can get out of here.”

Gloria watches as Nina comes closer to her and pulls both of Gloria’s daggers out of their sheaths. Throwing one to the other side of the cabin, she points the tip of the dagger to Gloria’s face, barely poking at her skin.

“The walkers will be drawn to the scent of your blood, they’ll be distracted by you and your screams when they start tearing you apart right in this very chair.” Nina snickers, moving the blade away from Gloria’s face.

“You’re a fucking psychopath!” Gloria shouts.

Nina laughs then slashes Gloria’s chest with the dagger, making Gloria cry out at the sudden pain. She doesn’t stop there though, Nina proceeds to slash at her upper arms and forearms. 

Gloria seethes at the sting on her now bloody skin, “Daryl will never love you.” 

Nina’s grip on the dagger tightens as she gets angry at her words, she glares at Gloria then steps forward and stabs Gloria in the abdomen, causing her to gasp loudly at the pain. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of Daryl.” Nina says as she pulls the dagger out of Gloria, and throws it somewhere in the cabin. 

She steps back and goes to the door, “main course is ready!”

Nina bangs on the front door loudly three times and then opens it to reveal a bloody mess of dead animals littered on the porch with walkers devouring the flesh. Nina runs to the back of the cabin and makes her exit. The walkers’ attention now on Gloria, catching the scent of her freshly spilled blood and flesh. 

“Fuck…” Gloria swears under her breath as the walkers start getting up and making their way towards her.

She tugs at the restraints but they’re too tight. Her feet were also tied to the legs of the chair but found that they were still touching the ground. Gloria carefully lifts her body, attempting to stand up, putting her weight onto her feet while the chair was still attached to her body. She had to keep her balance otherwise she’d be walker food. Noting that the chair was old, she prayed that enough force would easily break it. Gloria steadies herself and then pushes herself off her feet, propelling herself backwards, letting her body and the chair fall back into the wall. The momentum from her push and the weight of her body was enough force to crumble the chair, freeing Gloria. She rolls around on the ground, groaning at the pain in her torso. 

Gloria quickly gets up as she sees the walkers beginning to pile into the room. Out of habit, she reaches down to her belt for her daggers and groans as they’re missing. She scans her surroundings and picks up two now broken chair legs and starts swinging them at the walkers, fighting for her life.

—

Spotting the prison gates, Nina ruffles her hair and tears her own shirt. She makes a face and starts to wail, fake tears streaming down her face now as she runs out of the woods and to the prison where Carl was sitting. 

“Open the gates!” Nina shrieks, waving her arms frantically as she runs towards the prison.

Carl gets up immediately and opens the gate for Nina, worry written all over his face, “hey, what happened? Are you okay?”

Nina drops to the ground and sobs, her hair covering her face. Rick and Hershel were taking care of the crops and piglets when they heard Nina’s cries. Concerned, the two made their way over to where her and Carl were. Carl looks out to the road and the forest, then frowns even more when he realizes Gloria isn’t with her. 

“Hey, where’s Gloria?” Carl asks when Rick gets to them.

“Nina? Nina, hey, are you alright?” Rick asks, kneeling at Nina’s side. 

Nina just continues to sob, making Rick look up at Hershel, “bring her inside, she might calm down once she realizes she’s back home.”

Rick nods and helps Nina stand as he starts to walk her back to the prison, “Carl, come inside.”

“No.” Carl tells his father, “Gloria’s still out there, I have to be here to let her in when she gets back.”

A soft smile creeps on Rick’s face as he nods, “okay.”

Rick and Hershel help Nina into the prison, her sobs have softened but she wasn’t able to stop crying. Her sobs and cries catch the attention of everyone in the main area. Rick helps her sit down at one of the tables. 

“What happened?” Carol asks, coming out from Cell Block C. 

Rick shakes his head and sighs, “I don’t know, she isn’t able to talk and she hasn’t stopped crying.”

Sasha goes up to Nina, sitting down beside her and puts her hand on her shoulder, “Nina, what happened? We only want to help.”

Nina shakes her head and sobs harder. Sasha sighs and gets up as she isn’t able to break her walls she seems to have put up but then she gets an idea. Nina didn’t really like Sasha or anyone in particular but everyone knew she liked Daryl. 

“Daryl,” she calls out to him as he leans against the wall with his arms crossed, “try and get her to talk.” 

He hesitantly looks around as everyone looks at him. Nina had made it painfully obvious she liked Daryl and he knew it too. Hating that everyone’s eyes were now on him, he sighs then makes his way to Nina. Sasha moves out of the way to give them some space. 

“Nina… what happened?” Daryl asks as she sits down beside her. 

In an instant, Nina throws her arms around Daryl and cries. Daryl didn’t really know what to do, he was never comfortable with physical contact, especially with anyone he wasn’t close with. But Nina was crying and he had his arms up, hovering over her body, clearly uncomfortable. 

“Daryl, I was so scared! I went out to burn the walker bodies and got swarmed by a herd! I barely made it out!” she chokes out between sobs. 

“You went out there alone?” Carol frowns as she asks the question.

“No,” Maggie frantically says as she walks out from Cell Block C, “she left with Gloria, I was on watch when they left.” 

“Yeah, I opened the gate for them to drive out the courtyard.” Karen chimes in, crossing her arms.

Glenn jumps up at this and Daryl puts his hands on Nina’s shoulder to push her away from him, “Where’s Gloria?” 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Nina starts to bawl again, “I didn’t want to leave her but she told me to! I didn’t want to! She yelled at me to leave while she caused a distraction for me to come back here!” 

Not believing her story, Carol doesn’t say another word as she rushes out the building, followed quickly by Daryl, Glenn, Maggie and Rick. The five of them run to the front gates as Rick yells to Carl to open the gates for them. They were going to bring Gloria back, they had to.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

Gloria was backed up against the wall, walkers surrounding her as the chair legs she used before had broken at all the contact with walker skulls. She leans against the wall as she lifts her leg and pushes away a walker with a kick, making it tumble back into a few others. This gave her time and clearance to search for something else to use as a weapon. Gloria glances to the side and reaches down to grab the crowbar and candelabra that lay on the ground. She fought the walkers best while she was dual wielding; she needed to kill all of them and quick. She felt herself growing weaker as blood spilled out from the stab wound in her abdomen. 

Letting her adrenaline take over, she swipes at each walker, stabbing and jabbing them each in the head swiftly. The walkers that she killed fell at her feet, eventually creating a barrier from the other walkers. After what felt like hours of stabbing but was only a matter of minutes, Gloria had cleared the herd of walkers that made it into the cabin. She limps her way to the door and closes it to prevent any others from coming in. Her vision starts to get blurry, she drops the weapons she’s holding and her hand goes to the stab wound. 

“No… I’m not dying here…” Gloria tells herself, but she falls to the ground as her legs give way. 

She breathes heavily then a faint smile pulls at her lips as she spots her bag strewn across the cabin. Gloria grunts as she crawls her way to the bag, knowing she has some medical supplies in her bag in case of emergency. Once her hand touches a strap of her bag, she pulls it towards her, going through the contents until she finds a pack of gauze and bandages. Gloria makes herself sit up, leaning against the wall, she lifts up her now blood soaked shirt and presses the gauze on her wound. The originally white material now a deep dark red. She tosses the used gauze to the side and takes out more gauze, layering it together with the bandage to be more effective in soaking up the blood and hopefully to stop the bleeding. 

It seemed to be working as the gauze and bandage combination didn’t soak through with blood. Keeping it pressed to her wound, Gloria takes her jacket that was in her bag out and ties it tightly around her torso, groaning at the pain this was causing but she needed to hold the gauze in place. Still feeling weak from all the lost blood, she leans her head back on the wall as she breathes heavily. Her vision starts to blur again, eyes threatening to close but she shakes her head to keep from losing consciousness. 

“Tracks lead here.” Gloria hears a muffled voice from outside the cabin, she knows that voice; Daryl.

“You think she’s in there?” another voice, Glenn. 

“Only one way to find out.” Rick.

Glenn makes his way to the door of the cabin, Rick on the other side of the door frame with a knife in hand, Daryl right in front with his crossbow up and loaded. Rick nods to Glenn to open the door and he barges in. They all take in the massacre of walkers as they file into the cabin. Movement catches the corner of Daryl’s eye and he snaps his head to the side. 

“Gloria!” Daryl calls out dropping his crossbow as he dashes to her bloody body, checking for any bites, only to find the cuts on her arms and chest and the stab wound in her torso, “hey, you’re gonna be okay, a’right? I’m here, I’ll bring ya back and Hershel’ll patch ya up.”

A faint smile ghosts Gloria’s lips as she nods at his words. Glenn looks at Gloria with a pained expression as Daryl picks her up bridal style, causing Gloria to groan in pain as the movement affects her wound. 

“Sorry…” Daryl mutters as he carries her out of the cabin.

Glenn wipes his eyes then packs up Gloria’s bag as Maggie picks up one of Gloria’s daggers from the ground. Carol finds the other one and frowns as she notices that it’s covered in blood. Carol, Maggie and Glenn leave the cabin after retrieving Gloria’s things as well as Daryl’s crossbow from the ground and Rick takes one last look around the cabin before leaving. 

—

On their way back to the prison, Gloria had fallen out of consciousness as Daryl carried her. Carl followed the others back into the main building after letting them in and making sure the gate was locked. Glenn frantically called out for Hershel once he got into the building, letting the older man know that Gloria was seriously injured. He and Daryl followed Hershel to the infirmary as the others stayed out in the main area outside the cell blocks. Carol eyed Nina warily as she didn’t miss the look of horror on her face when she saw that they had brought Gloria back. 

Gloria was now resting in her and Daryl’s shared cell after Hershel had tended to her injuries. Daryl sat on the bed beside her, his hand holding hers and his eyes never leaving her. Glenn was crouched outside the cell, leaning against the wall with his head in his hands. Rick was on the lower level of the cell block, tending to Judith. Maggie was in the kitchen area helping Carol with dinner for everyone. 

“C’mon girl…” Daryl mumbles as he lifts Gloria’s hand to his lips, gently kissing her hand.

It had only been a few hours since they brought her back but Daryl was getting anxious and impatient. He felt his heart stop when he saw her back in the cabin; her face was pale, drenched in sweat and blood, both her own and of all the walkers she’d killed. It was the first time he’d ever seen her so weak and frail and it scared the fuck out of him. Even the sight of her now resting on the bed scared him. She had bandages all over her, wrapping her arms and a patch on her chest. Although Hershel told him that she would be fine, his fear of losing her wouldn’t go away until she woke up. 

“She hasn’t woken up yet?” Maggie asks Glenn outside the cell as she peers inside with Carol beside her.

Glenn looks up at her and glances behind his shoulder, taking in Daryl’s form as a negative and shakes his head, “no…”

Maggie frowns and hands Glenn a bowl of stew which he takes and smiles softly at her, nodding at her as a thank you. Carol walks into the cell with a bowl of stew for Daryl.

“Daryl, here.” Carol says, handing him the bowl.

He glances at her then looks back at Gloria and shakes his head, “‘m okay.”

“No, you’re not. You have to eat something, Daryl.” Carol urges.

“How d’ya expect me to eat when she’s like this?!” Daryl says, irritated, looking up at Carol.

He didn’t mean to snap at her, but he couldn’t help it. Carol sighs softly as she takes in Daryl’s face, his eyes puffy with tears. 

“She’ll wake up, and when she does, she’s going to need you to be strong for her. And you can only stay strong if you eat. You can’t starve yourself for as long as she’s out.” Carol lectures him, urging him to take the bowl again. 

Daryl stares at the bowl, hesitant to take it. He knew Carol was right, he needed to eat to stay strong, but his body couldn’t. 

“She’s right…” a weak whisper sounds from Gloria’s lips.

Daryl whips his head back right when he hears the sound. Gloria’s eyes were open, looking sleepy, but still open as she smiles softly at him. Carol lets out a silent breath of relief then goes out of the cell to let Glenn and Maggie know she’d woken up.

“Hey, hey… how ya feelin’?” he asks gently as he caresses her cheek.

“Never been better.” Gloria chuckles weakly.

“Sis?!” Glenn calls out as he rushes into the cell, tears well up in his eyes as relief washes over him when he sees her awake.

“Hey, bro.” she greets in a soft voice.

“You’re such a little trooper.” Carol cooes as she goes over to her side and gently strokes Gloria’s hair. 

Gloria smiles at the affection then tries to push herself to sit up, seeing this, Daryl and Carol help her up slowly. She winces and hisses at the tug on her abdomen then relaxes when she’s in a sitting position, leaning against the wall. 

“Ya okay?” Daryl asks, still holding her hand.

She nods, but before she can say anything else, Maggie had brought Rick and Hershel to the cell. She waves weakly at them as she sees them in the doorway. Maggie chuckles and waves back, tears brimming her eyes. Hershel walks into the cell.

“Do you mind if I check on you?” he asks, mainly asking Daryl for permission.

Taking the sign, Daryl reluctantly lets go of her hand and gets up from the bed, letting Hershel take over. He stands beside Glenn who had already stepped aside to give Hershel more room. Glenn pats Daryl’s arm and they both nod at each other in acknowledgement. Rick comes to his side and gives him a look of reassurance and Daryl nods at him too. 

“Good news is there’s no sign of infection and you don’t have a fever, bad news is…” Hershel looks at her and pauses.

The others feel tense at the vet’s last words, Gloria furrows her brows in confusion as she recognizes a hint of playful twinkle in Hershel’s eyes.

“Lizzie took the last lollipop.” Hershel smiles warmly at her.

Gloria groans playfully, “I wanted the cherry one.” 

Another wave of relief overcomes the others as they chuckle at the joke between both doctors. 

“Get some more rest and let me or Caleb know if you start feeling unwell.” Hershel says as he pats her knee.

“You got it.” Gloria nods with a smile.

Hershel nods at her then stands up and walks out of the cell. Daryl is quick to take back his spot on the bed. There is a comforting silence within the cell as Gloria looks at her family surrounding her. She didn’t even need to ask to know that they all went out to look for her when they heard Nina’s made up story. She frowns as she remembers how she even ended up hurt.

“Where’s Nina?” Gloria questions, looking at Carol.

“She’s fine, I think she’s back in her cell block.” Rick answers. 

“Seriously, Gloria… what the hell were you thinking?” Glenn sighs, frustrated, “distracting a herd of walkers so she can get away? You don’t have to be a hero! If you’re not gonna think about yourself, at least think about us and how we’d feel if we couldn’t bring you back!”

Maggie put her hand on Glenn’s shoulder, trying to comfort him. Everyone else in the room but Carol and Gloria seemed to be in silent agreement with his words. Gloria sighs, she expected this since she knows the story Nina had spewed to everyone. She didn’t exactly blame them though, with how frantic they had been, their vision and attention to detail would be clouded by emotion. Gloria knew that if they weren’t so emotion driven, they would have been able to pick out the details and know that there was foul play. 

“Are you done?” Gloria says, a little harsher than she intended to be but she was angry as she remembered what Nina did to her, “because I’ll tell you right now that there was no herd.”

“What d’ya mean there was no herd?” Daryl asks, confused and frowning.

Gloria sighs and looks up at Carol, “I should have listened to you, you were right.” 

“Right about what?” Glenn says, his face full of confusion.

“Right about Nina and how she can’t be trusted.” Carol responds, crossing her arms.

Rick steps forward like the leader he is, “okay, why don’t you start from the top? What happened in the woods?”

“I was going out to burn the walkers with Nina.” Gloria starts but she’s stopped by Carol.

“Why did you even decide to take her with you?” Carol looks at her disapprovingly.

“She volunteered,” she answers, earning an eye roll from the older woman, “anyway, we’d just finished putting out the fire when she started screaming and ran into the forest and since I brought her out there, I felt the need to bring her back safe so I chased her into the forest. That’s when we found the cabin and she basically jumped me.” 

“How’d she sneak up on you?” Maggie asks.

“I let my guard down because I thought she couldn’t fight and she distracted me with the cabin, said that we should check it out, but then she knocked me out with a rock.” Gloria looks down, slightly embarrassed for getting attacked in such a stupid way.

“Did she tie you to a chair?” Rick questions, his sheriff deputy side was showing.

Gloria nods, “how’d you know?”

“Saw the broken chair with rope and restraints, could’ve guessed.” Rick explains.

“She tied you up and cut you?” Carol grimaces at her own words.

“She tied me up, cut, **and** stabbed me.” Gloria corrects her, she glances at Daryl when she feels his hand tense up as he holds hers. 

“Then she lured all those walkers into the cabin?” Maggie put the rest of the story together.

Gloria nods, “yeah, I guess she never thought I was that awesome to take out a herd by myself.”

She felt the need to lighten up the mood in the cell as she could feel the anger rising in both Glenn and Daryl. Gloria put her free hand on top of Daryl’s, trying to calm him down.

“Did she tell ya why she did it?” Daryl grumbles, not looking at her.

Gloria frowns at the question, her intuition told her that Daryl already figured out why Nina did what she did and that he just wanted confirmation but she couldn’t do that to him. She couldn’t tell him that she got hurt because Nina liked Daryl. Knowing him, he’d take it out on himself and blame himself for everything that happened.

“No, she didn’t, but it doesn’t matter, she’s crazy, Daryl. A fucking psycho, they don’t need a reason to hurt or kill, they just do.” Gloria tells him, trying to reason with his inner demons.

“She don’ need a reason to hurt or kill… well, she gave me one.” Daryl growls as he yanks his hand out of Gloria’s grasp and gets up from the bed to leave the cell with Glenn following behind as he had the same mindset.

“Daryl! Glenn!” Gloria calls out to them.

Rick steps in front of them both and puts his hands on both their chests to push them back, “you both need to calm down.”

“Calm down? How do you expect us to calm down?!” Glenn shouts as Daryl glares at Rick.

“There’s a damn psychotic bitch livin’ within these walls who just tried to kill Gloria, ya can’t expect us to sit around and do nothin’!” Daryl scowls, seething in anger. 

“I know.” Rick stands his ground as he looks at the two, “I hate what happened to Gloria too, and I’m not going to tell you that I’m okay with her living with us, I’m not, but we have to think about this.”

“What’s there to even think about? She’s a threat to everyone here!” Glenn points out. 

“I know that, but we can’t just kill her, that’s not who we are.” Rick tries to sway them as well as everyone else in the cell.

“What ya suggest then?” Daryl says, his breathing seemed to have calmed slightly.

“Exile.” Rick states his thoughts, “we’ll kick her out. The prison is different from the farm, she can’t get back inside without anyone letting her in.”

“But we don’t know what she’s capable of anymore, I always thought she was sweet and innocent and didn’t know how to fight but look at what she did to Gloria.” Maggie chimes in.

Gloria was about to speak up in her own defence but Daryl beat her to it, “Nah, she jumped her. Snuck up on her when she weren’t lookin’. Tied her to a chair so she couldn’ do nothin’, she ain’ no fighter.”

“Well, why don’t we ask Gloria what she thinks, she’s the victim after all.” Carol says, bringing the attention back to Gloria. 

“Please don’t call me a victim…” Gloria makes a face then looks to Rick, “I agree with Rick, killing someone because they did something wrong should not be who we are. Most of the world was trying to get rid of the death penalty for a reason, and I don’t want us to be the ones to bring it back. And… I don’t want to be the reason someone has to die.”

Glenn and Daryl falter at her words, both of them look down and nod in understanding. Then it was settled, Rick would be the one to take Nina out of the prison, Glenn and Daryl didn’t trust their own emotions if they were the ones to do it. Of course, Nina was not happy with the group’s decision as she was throwing a fit when Rick forced her to pack up her things. Gloria was laying in her and Daryl’s shared cell with him to rest while the others went out into the main area. 

“No! You can’t do this! You can’t!” Nina screams as Rick drags her out to the main area, she looks around frantically, “Sasha! Tyreese! Help me! You can’t let him kick me out!”

“You tried to kill Gloria!” Sasha says angrily stepping up while crossing her arms, Tyreese was behind her to back her up.

Nina cries as she shakes her head, “n-no! I didn’t! I wouldn’t!”

“You would, and you did!” Glenn shouts furiously, “you’re damn lucky Gloria’s a fighter because if she didn’t make it back, I’d take care of you myself!”

Rick shoots him a look before trying to pull Nina out but she struggles to keep from being dragged out. She lets out a gasp when she sees Daryl coming out of Cell Block C; Gloria asked him to get her a glass of water. Nina roughly yanks her arm out of Rick’s grasp.

“Daryl! You care about me! I know you do! You know I can’t survive out there by myself!” Nina cries.

“Good,” he says as he pours a glass of water, “ya should be happy we even gave ya a chance out there, if it were up to me I’d put a bolt in ya an’ be done with it.”

Nina whimpers, shaking her head as tears stream down her face, “everything I did, I did for you! Because I love you!”

“Tha’s **bullshit!** ” Daryl shouts as he slams down the glass, nearly shattering it as he storms over to her, “Ya don’ love me! Ya don’ know nothin’ about me! Hell, ya don’ even know what the fuck love is!”

“I do! I do know!” Nina wails as she rushes up to Daryl, throwing herself at him as she forcefully hugs him, “everything I did was because I love you! So don’t tell me I don’t know what love is, because I do! I love you, Daryl!”

He grunts angrily as he shoves her away from him, causing Nina to stumble backwards. She looks around the area, her breathing heavy as she catches everyone staring at her. She lets out another whimper when her eyes land back on Daryl.

“Dar-”

“Are you done throwing your tantrum?” 

Everyone’s attention is averted to the door to Cell Block C where Gloria is standing with her arms crossed. She’d started making her way down to the main area when she heard Daryl shouting. She’d also witnessed Nina throwing herself at him.

“If you’re done, you can get the fuck out of here.” Gloria glares at her while walking towards her.

“You should be resting,” Carol says, looking at her worriedly.

“I will,” Gloria says, her eyes not leaving Nina, “but I can’t exactly rest with her throwing a fit.”

“You have no right to throw me out! I didn’t do anything to you! Why are you doing this to me!?” Nina screams.

Without another word, Gloria quickly steps up to Nina and pulls out one of her daggers, pressing it to Nina’s chest. She freezes the instant she feels the cold metal on her skin. The others stare at the scene in shock, Rick holds his hand up to try to keep Gloria from doing anything she’d regret. 

“You want to keep denying what you did? Should I give you the same scar to remind you,” Gloria raises her other hand to peel the bandage covering the cut on her chest, “exactly what you did to me?”

Nina looks at the stitched up cut on Gloria’s chest then back up at her, unable to say anything as she trembles in fear.

“We’re letting you off easy for trying to **kill** me, so consider yourself lucky,” Gloria says then leans in and says in a low voice, “and if I ever see you again, I’ll shoot you in the face for touching Daryl.”

Nina lets out a shaky breath when Gloria steps back, nodding to Rick who then grabs onto Nina’s arm again and ushers her out of the prison. Gloria puts her dagger back in its sheath and lets out a sigh, her hand finds the table and she leans on it. She was still feeling weak from the blood lost but enough was enough.

“Daryl, help her with her bandage,” Hershel calls out to Daryl who nods and goes to help Gloria patch up the bandage she’d peeled off, “then take her to her cell to rest, with the amount of blood she lost, she shouldn’t have been able to make it down the stairs on her own.”

Glenn sighs at Hershel’s words and looks at Gloria, “you didn’t have to come down here, we could have handled her.”

“Could you though?” Gloria says, a tired but teasing smile tugging on her lips, “because from what I recall, you were threatening to kill her.”

Glenn scoffs at her but smiles softly, relieved that Gloria was still able to joke around and tease him the way she always did. Daryl takes her hand and brings her back to their shared cell. Gloria sits down on the bed while Daryl stands by the door to the cell. She looks up at him and reaches her hand out to him, gently urging him to sit down with her. His arms wrap around her once he gives in to her touch, he hides his face in the crook of her neck. 

“‘M sorry…” he mutters. 

Gloria frowns at his words, “for what?” 

“Ya got hurt ‘cause o’ me,” he says.

“Daryl…” Gloria calls to him, gently pushing him away so she can see his face, “I didn’t get hurt because of you, I got hurt because of a crazy bitch.”

“Yeah… a crazy bitch who says she’s in love wit’ me…” Daryl scoffs, “said she knows what love is, but she don’t… that shit ain’t love.”

“Then?” Gloria asks, making Daryl furrow his brows as he looks at her in confusion, “what is it, to you?”

Daryl ponders for a moment, a light blush creeping up on his cheeks as he takes her hand in his, “you…”

“Me?” Gloria chuckles softly, a shy smile tugs at her lips.

“Wantin’ to be with ya every second o’ every day, an’ when I’m not with ya, I’ll be thinkin’ ‘bout ya.” Daryl says, looking into her eyes, he caresses her face with his thumb, “always wantin’ ya to be safe… wantin’ ya to be happy even if it ain’t me ya want anymore.”

Without saying anything else, Gloria leans in to him, kissing his lips tenderly, she pulls away from the kiss so that her lips were just barely touching his, “you’re the only one I’ll ever want.”

Daryl smiles at her words and pecks her lips lightly before going back to hiding his face in the crook of her neck. Gloria has to suppress her giggle at his actions. She presses a gentle kiss to his temple, holding him close. He had never voiced his opinion on anything related to love, or feelings, or emotions, and although he knew that Gloria would never judge him for it, he still felt shy about it. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

A month had passed after Nina’s exile. Since then, the group of survivors have brought more people into the prison. Rick thought that they needed to build the community they had and couldn’t let one individual stop them from trusting others. They were, however, much more wary about the people they brought in, making sure to ask three questions: how many walkers they’ve killed, how many people they’ve killed, and why. They’d also made sure to not let any new comers go on runs until they were sure they could be fully trusted. 

Daryl and Glenn were planning a large group run to The Big Spot, another abandoned shopping mall Glenn had spotted while on other runs. The group that they planned to bring along with them was Maggie, Sasha, Tyreese, and Zach, a boy from Woodbury who had become Beth’s boyfriend. With the help of some others, they were now all preparing to go on the run, packing up some emergency supplies in the cars. 

Gloria puts a bag into the trunk of a car they were taking then purses her lips in thought, then holds onto Daryl’s arm as he walks by her, “hey…”

Placing a box into the trunk, he looks at her, noticing her perplexed face, “wha’s wrong?”

“I’m… I’m worried.” Gloria sighs, telling him honestly, “the last time we went on a run to a mall…”

“Hey… shh…” he cuts her off, knowing what she’s insinuating, he caresses her face with his knuckles, “nothin’s gonna happen, we’re gonna be fine.” 

“I can’t help but worry about you when you’re out there.” Gloria looks down, shy and slightly embarrassed. 

Her words cause Daryl to wrap his arms around her, holding her close, his hand cradling her head, “ya don’ need to worry ‘bout me, I’ll always come back to ya.” 

Gloria hums, wrapping her arms around his waist and snuggling into his chest, “did you know that Glenn proposed to Maggie the other day?” 

“Oh yeah?” Daryl smiles at the news.

“Yeah, I’m glad romance still exists in this cruel ugly world.” Gloria smiles, sighing happily.

Daryl chuckles then kisses the side of her head, “I love ya.” he whispers into her ear.

The words make Gloria push away from Daryl, looking up at him in pleasant surprise. She didn’t expect him to be the first one to say those three words. A shy smile creeps on her face as she kisses him gently on the lips. Daryl squints at her when she pulls away from the kiss.

“Ya ain’t gon’ say it back?” he says with a hint of playfulness in his voice. 

“I’ll say it when you get back.” Gloria grins cheekily at him, making Daryl scoff. 

From behind Daryl, the sight of Beth with Zach catches Gloria’s eye as they share sweet smiles and kisses. Gloria chuckles and nudges Daryl to look behind him. He glances back and smiles too at the scene, then proceeds to get more supplies for the run. Beth plants another kiss on Zach’s cheek then walks away from him.

“What, no goodbye?” he calls out to her.

“Nope!” Beth grins as she doesn’t even turn around to him.

Daryl walks back to the car carrying a crate while noticing the two teenagers, “’s like a damn romance novel.”

Gloria laughs at his words, “stop, they’re cute!”

Once he places the crate into the trunk, he slams it closed then goes to the other cars with Gloria following him. They both check the other cars to see if they’re missing anything else for the run. Gloria looks around and sees Glenn but no Maggie. She goes up to her brother and nudges him.

“Where’s Maggie, isn’t she going on the run?” she asks, leaning against the truck.

“No, she’s not.” Glenn answers, then looks up at her, “can you um… can you check on her for me? She might not be feeling well.”

Gloria blinks at him, confused, “might?” 

“She’ll explain it to you when you see her.” Glenn says, patting her arm as he walks away.

His answer did not clear up any confusion, it only made her even more confused. She sighs as she pushes herself off the car, crossing her arms and going over to Daryl who had already mounted his bike. Gloria puts at hand on his shoulder and kisses his cheek.

“You be safe out there.” she says with a soft smile.

Daryl looks up at her and pats her hand that’s on his shoulder, “Always am.” 

Seeing that the others are ready to set off on the run, Gloria backs away from Daryl who revs up his bike. She watches as they drive out to the main gates, meeting with Michonne who had just come back from a month of searching for the Governor outside. Remembering her short but confusing conversation with Glenn, Gloria goes to check up on Maggie to see what Glenn was talking about. 

“Can I come in?” she asks after knocking on the open gate of Maggie and Glenn’s shared cell.

Maggie looks up and smiles, “of course.” 

Gloria walks into the cell and sits on the bed beside Maggie, “are you feeling okay?”

“I am…” Maggie says but frowns in confusion, “why do you ask?”

“Glenn told me that you **might** not be feeling well.” Gloria tells her, shrugging.

Maggie chuckles and shakes her head, “I’m fine. It’s just…” she glances at the floor then back at Gloria, hesitating to speak, “I… could be…. Pregnant.”

“Really?!” Gloria asks, her eyes wide with happy shock, “when did you last have your period?”

“I haven’t really been counting the days but it feels like a few months ago.” Maggie explains.

“Well, have you done a test yet?” she asks, her nurse side peeping through.

Maggie sighs and shakes her head, “I’m a little afraid to…”

“It’s best that you do, just so you know and don’t have to be worried about whether you are or not.” Gloria tells her then reaches out to hold Maggie’s hands with hers, “I’ll be right there with you when you take it so you don’t have to be afraid.” 

Maggie smiles gratefully at her then nods, “okay.” 

“You head to the bathrooms, I’ll get a test for you at the infirmary.” Gloria instructs as her and Maggie get up from her bed and walk out of the cell.

“Why do we even have those in the infirmary anyway?” Maggie questions, slightly amused and wiggling an eyebrow at Gloria, “are you and Daryl…?

Gloria looks at Maggie, bewildered and blushing slightly, “what?! No! The boys went on a run and grabbed a bunch of stuff without trying to sort out what was what and just somehow brought a bunch of maternal stuff back.”

Maggie laughs at Gloria’s reaction and pats her back, nodding and accepting her answer. The girls split ways, Maggie going to the bathrooms and Gloria to the infirmary. Reaching for the bin she had put together specifically for females, Gloria takes out two pregnancy tests and places the bin back in it’s spot. She figured that she would get two just in case Maggie didn’t believe the first one or it turned out to be faulty. She’s about to leave the infirmary when Patrick, a boy who was close to Carl’s age, comes by looking rather pale. 

“Hey, are you okay?” Gloria asks once she sees his complexion, “sit down.”

“Carol told me to come here to see either you, Hershel, or Dr. Caleb.” Patrick explains as he makes his way to sit on the patient bed, but not without coughing a few times. 

Gloria nods then sets to work. Taking a tongue depressor, she tells Patrick to open his mouth wide and presses the wooden stick down, firm but gentle on his tongue as she shines a small handheld flashlight down to check his throat. 

“Your throat doesn’t seem to be swollen, so that’s a good sign.” Gloria tells him, then places her hand on his forehead, “you don’t seem to have a fever either.”

“I’ve been feeling really nauseous and coughing a whole lot.” Patrick tells her, worry in his voice.

Gloria nods as she looks at him, “yeah, you don’t look perfectly fine, but you should be okay, you might have just caught a small cold. Just remember to rest and drink lots of water, and if you don’t feel better by tomorrow morning, come back to see me, Hershel or Dr. Caleb, okay?”

Patrick nods and thanks her before going back to his cell block. Gloria quickly grabs the two pregnancy tests and rushes off to the bathrooms, worried that Maggie would be upset at her for keeping her waiting so long. She calls out a string of apologies when she sees her sister-in-law.

“Patrick came to the infirmary and wasn’t feeling so well, so I did a small check up on him.” Gloria explains quickly and slightly out of breath.

Maggie chuckles at her, “it’s okay, don’t worry. Is he okay though?”

“Yeah, he should be fine. He’s coughing and says that he feels nauseous but I didn’t see any signs of anything too serious.” Gloria tells her.

“That’s good,” Maggie nods, then furrows her brows together when Gloria hands her both of the pregnancy tests, “why are there two?”

“I didn’t know if you would believe just one.” Gloria shrugs, a sheepish grin on her face.

Maggie playfully rolls her eyes and nudges her, taking the tests and goes to one of the stalls. Gloria leans on the sink counter and waits outside patiently for Maggie to do her business. Once she hears the stall door opening, she pushes herself off the counter and looks to Maggie who’s looking down at the test in her hand. She’s unable to read her face then goes to her and looks over her shoulder, reading the test as negative. 

“You don’t know whether to be happy or sad about this, do you.” Gloria says more as a statement than a question.

Maggie nods and sighs, “I do want a baby but… I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle that in the world we live in now.. And after what happened with Lori…”

Gloria wraps her arms around Maggie’s shoulders, “”hey, nothing’s gonna happen to you, you can handle anything that comes your way with us by your side.”

Maggie smiles at her and nods, “yeah, I know.”

—

Later in the evening, Glenn and Daryl’s group had returned from the run but rather than being happy from the successful run, their moods were solemn and depressed. Gloria was in her and Daryl’s shared cell, sitting on the bed writing in a blank sheet music book Glenn had found her on a previous run. She’d been keeping up with her music and writing songs again to pass the time. Sometimes she would even hum her songs to Daryl, lulling him to sleep. 

Daryl walks into the cell, stopping close to the doorway as Gloria was in the middle of humming softly to herself the song she was writing. She looks up at him and sees that he’s looking down at the ground. She frowns as she notices something’s wrong, putting the book to the side, she gets up. 

“Daryl?” she calls out to him as she makes her way to him, caressing his face with her hand, “what’s wrong?” 

“We lost Zach…” he manages to mutter out. 

Gloria stares at him with worried eyes, not knowing what to say. It felt like a while since the last time they had lost anyone in their group, she knew it was too good to be true to last this long. Her mind wanders to Beth and her heart aches for the girl.

“Is… does Beth know?” Gloria asks softly.

Daryl nods, “jus’ told her.”

“How’s she taking it?” she bites her lip, worried about his reply.

“She’s fine,” Daryl chuckles, bitterness in his voice, “ain’ even sheddin’ a tear. Said she doesn’ cry anymore… who the hell says that?” 

He walks deeper into the cell past Gloria, taking off his crossbow and setting it on the ground beside Gloria’s bag and belt of daggers. Gloria takes his hand and guides him to sit on the bed, taking a seat beside him as she wraps her arms around him, kissing his cheek.

“Are you okay?” she says in a small whisper. 

Daryl doesn’t respond right away, he seems to be in deep thought for awhile as Gloria patiently waits for him to speak. Finally, he lets out a sigh.

“It’s been awhile since anythin’ bad happened… since we lost someone.” he starts, “should’ve never brought him on the run…” 

“Daryl…” Gloria reaches down and holds his hand, “no one can ever predict these things, every single time anyone goes on a run, there’s always a possibility that someone might not make it back, and I know it sucks but you still go anyway.. You can’t prevent every loss, no one can.”

He lets out another heavy sigh and nods, he then glances to the side and notices Gloria’s book is open. Daryl takes it and looks at the pages, not comprehending what’s written on the paper.

“Ya writin’ again?” he asks then leans into her as she nods, “what’s it sound like?”

Gloria chuckles softly and turns two pages back, “I don’t like starting in the middle of a song.” 

She kisses his temple then starts to hum the melody to him, a soft smile on her face. She could feel the tension in his body slowly dissipating as he relaxes in her embrace. Gloria was somehow always able to calm him down and help him feel better with her voice, there was just something about her that soothed him like nothing else. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

Gloria was sound asleep in her cell, her back to Daryl as she lay on her side, her front side facing the wall on the inner side of the bed. His arm was draped around her waist, spooning her close to him as he slept peacefully by her side. Their slumber was suddenly interrupted by distant screaming and gunshots firing within the prison. Daryl jolts up at the sound, startling Gloria awake at the sudden movement. She rubs her eyes of sleep with the back of her hand then looks to Daryl as he gets up from the bed. 

“Get to the infirmary.” Daryl orders her as he picks up his crossbow and bolts out of the cell.

Gloria complies with his words, throwing on her army green jacket and equipping herself with her belt of daggers, she rushes to the infirmary. Seeing that a woman and her daughter are already there waiting for her in tears, Gloria ushers them into the infirmary, sitting them down and checking on them. They had minor scrapes and cuts on their arms and legs but nothing life threatening.

“What happened?” Gloria asks once she’s done patching up the two.

“Walkers…” the woman chokes out.

Her answer earns a baffled look from Gloria. How could walkers get into the prison? They’d cleared out the prison and blocked off any possible entrances, there was no way walkers could break into the walls, at least not without anyone knowing. After making sure the two are fine, she sends them off to the main area to find Rick, telling them that he’ll know what to do. A few more people come to the infirmary, Gloria recognizes them all as residents of Cell Block D. Now knowing that there was somehow a walker attack, she checks them all for bites. Fortunately, she only finds minor injuries, some worse than others but not a single bite. Gloria tells them the same thing she had told the woman with her daughter, to find Rick in the main area. Moments later, Hershel and Caleb meet Gloria at the infirmary. 

“Hey, I heard there was a walker attack in Cell Block D.” Gloria states, concern evident in her voice, Hershel and Caleb both nod at her, “how’d they even get in?”

“That’s the thing, they didn’t.” Hershel starts, “one of the kids, Patrick, he died overnight because of a cold and turned.”

Gloria feels the blood drain from her face, “P-Patrick…? I saw him yesterday… he barely had a cold, how could he-”

“This is something that progressed extremely fast, it’s not your fault.” Caleb jumps in before Gloria could finish speaking, “none of us would have been able to see the signs.”

“I just told him to rest and drink lots of water and to see one of us in the morning if he doesn’t feel better…” Gloria slums down in the chair, looking down. 

“We would have told him the same thing, Gloria.” Hershel tells her in attempts to comfort her. 

Caleb nods, “we wouldn’t have seen his symptoms and think of them as deadly.” 

Gloria sighs, her eyes welling up with tears, “I should have just given him antibiotics, then none of this would have happened, he might not have died…” 

“Judging by how frail he was and with his immune system, antibiotics might not have done anything for him.” Hershel reminds her.

Accepting that there was nothing that she could have done, she nods and looks up at Hershel and Caleb, “so, what’s Rick’s plan?”

“How are we doing with antibiotics?” Hershel asks, gesturing to the bins, “if anyone else is infected with the cold or whatever it is, we need to be prepared.”

“The last time I checked, we were running low.” Gloria says as she gets up to check the bins where they kept the medicine, then sighs, “we don’t even have enough for even one person if they end up sick.”

Hershel purses his lips in deep thought, “we’re going to hold a council meeting tomorrow. For now, anyone who was in Cell Block D will be going to Cell Block A to be quarantined just in case.”

Gloria frowns at the mention of Cell Block A, “that’s death row…”

Hershel chuckles softly at her, “that’s the same tone Glenn used when Carol mentioned it earlier.”

“Are you sure you two aren’t twins?” Caleb jokes, grinning at her.

Gloria rolls her eyes playfully at him. The two other doctors take their leave as Gloria starts to tidy up the infirmary. As she’s putting back bins in their proper spots, Maggie appears at the door carrying Michonne with Carl beside them. Gloria looks at them and frowns.

“Are you guys okay?” she asks.

“Michonne hurt her ankle.” Maggie tells her as she lets the other woman sit on the patient bed.

“I’m fine.” Michonne grumbles but lets Gloria take a look at her ankle anyway.

She kneels in front of her, gently and carefully moving her ankle to examine how bad the damage is. Gloria takes notice every time Michonne tries not to let show that it hurts. Maggie had left the infirmary, telling the others that she needed to help Glenn and the others with the fence that was caving in from walkers. 

“How bad is it?” Carl asks, standing beside Michonne.

“It’s sprained, not too badly though, but you should keep off it for now.” Gloria says, getting up to go to one of the shelves, “I’ll put a compression wrap on it to help it feel better” 

Michonne nods as Gloria fishes out a package of compression bandage and goes back over to her. She kneels down again and starts to treat her ankle.

“Just like how you had to keep off your ankle for a month back at the farm?” Carl teases Gloria.

Gloria scoffs, “yes, exactly like that.”

“What happened?” Michonne tilts her head, slightly amused.

“I fell down a hill and sprained my ankle real bad. Daryl found me and took me back to Hershel’s farm.” Gloria squints at Carl, “and that’s where I found out that you got shot.”

Michonne gawks at Carl, “you never told me that.”

“Of course he didn’t, he only tells stories about when he looks cool.” Gloria teases back, earning a giggle from Carl.

“That’s not true! I told Michonne about when you took out that herd in the cabin even though you were really hurt because of Nina.” Carl retorts.

Gloria smirks at that, “thanks for spreading the word about me being a badass.” 

Carl rolls his eyes and Michonne laughs, “I was sure Daryl would have killed her for that.”

“I thought so too, but thank God Rick was fast enough to hold both him and Glenn back.” Gloria says, then looks up at Michonne, “did you see her out there, by the way?”

Michonne sighs and shakes her head, “no, I didn’t see anyone out there, no Nina, no Governor, just walkers and trees.”

—

That night, Gloria was in her and Daryl’s cell sitting on the bed thinking about everything that happened that day and her mind drifted to her conversation with Michonne and Carl in the infirmary. She had taken off her jacket and was wearing a black tank top, her arms fully revealed to anyone who walked into the cell. Gloria hadn’t really thought about the incident, she just pushed it to the back of her mind since it was over and done with. Her hands wandered to the deep scars on her arms from when Nina had cut her to draw blood as a distraction for the walkers. They were the reason she never left her cell without a jacket or wearing a long sleeved shirt anymore, she needed something to cover up her scars. There wasn’t much she could do about the scar on her chest that always poked through the neck of her shirt, but she hated her scars on her arms. They gave her an insecurity she never felt before, and she wasn’t sure if she hated the feeling of being insecure more or her scars.

Daryl walks into the cell and sits beside her on the bed before letting himself fall back. Gloria glances over at him and smiles softly, subconsciously covering her arms with the blanket.

“Tired?” she asks.

“Exhausted.” he grumbles, his eyes closed, “Rick had to kill the pigs… needed to distract the walkers from breakin’ down the fence.”

Gloria sighs, “poor Carl… he was getting attached to them.”

There’s a silence between them as Daryl takes a long pause, “someone killed Karen and David.”

“W-what?” Gloria stares at him in shock, she knew that David and Karen had caught whatever influenza that killed Patrick and had them in another cell block away from the others, but she never thought anyone would ever think to kill them.

“Tyreese went to give Karen flowers but saw a trail of their blood… then found their bodies burnt to a crisp.” Daryl sighs. 

Gloria didn’t know what to say, she could never imagine how Tyreese would be feeling. She wraps the blanket tighter around her arms, as if that would make everything better. Daryl opens his eyes as he notices her silence. He looks at her and sees her all wrapped up in the blanket. He lets out a breath, he never brought it up to her but he noticed how she became very insecure about her arms after her incident with Nina. He hated it. Daryl always saw her as beautiful, flawless, perfect. Even with her scars now, she was still perfect to him, but now those damn scars would prevent her from seeing it herself and that angered him. 

Daryl sits up on the bed and moves closer to Gloria, tugging the blanket off her shoulders and wrapping his arm around her lower back, he plants a lingering kiss on the tip of the scar on her upper arm. Gloria looks at him and a small shy smile tugs at her lips. She reaches over to hold his hand that’s resting in his lap. Daryl moves up and kisses her shoulder then leans in, gently kissing her lips. 

“Ya okay?” Daryl whispers on her lips.

Gloria nods, caressing his face with her other hand, “yeah, you should rest, you had a long day and there’s a council meeting early tomorrow morning.” 

Daryl sighs at her reminder and nods. He shifts to lie down on the bed, pulling Gloria into his arms, causing her to giggle slightly as he holds her close, snuggling her as he drifts off to sleep. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

Early the next morning, Daryl silently got out of bed to meet with the others for the council meeting. He was careful to not wake up Gloria who was still fast asleep. Right before he left, he planted a soft kiss on her forehead, making her stir a bit in her sleep. When she woke up, it was already noon. She frowns as she feels that her body temperature was higher than usual. Gloria moves to sit up and puts on her army green jacket, groaning when her body aches at every movement, she gets up to go down to the kitchen area, needing water to parch her dry throat. When she gets to the door of her cell though, she lets out a few rough coughs. Sighing heavily, Gloria figures that she had caught the disease that was going around. She continues on her way down the stairs to the first level of the cell block while covering her mouth with her sleeve. 

“No…! No, Maggie don’t…” Gloria hears Glenn groaning from his cell.

Maggie takes a step back from the door to her and Glenn’s shared cell, giving Gloria view into their cell. From how clammy Glenn’s complexion was, she could tell right away that he had also caught the flu and just by the look of him, he was already in worse condition than her. 

“Maggie.” Gloria calls out, wincing at how hoarse her own voice was.

Maggie turns to look at Gloria, her eyes already teary when she gasps as she realizes Gloria was also sick, “Gloria…”

She smiles softly at the other woman, wanting to give her some reassurance, “let me take him.”

Maggie chokes out a sob at her words, moving to the side to let her into the cell. Gloria sighs softly as she walks into the cell and extends her arm out for Glenn.

“Lets go, bro.” she says, helping Glenn off the bed and out of the cell.

Maggie watches the siblings helplessly as they walk out the cell block towards Cell Block A. Once they reach the entrance of Cell Block A, they are met with Carol who’s wearing her scarf over her mouth and nose. She gasps and tears up when she sees them.

“No…” she whispers. 

Trying to make light of a bad situation, Gloria raises her arm that’s not holding Glenn up and announces in a tired voice, “we made it!”

Glenn chuckles at Gloria’s enthusiasm only to start a coughing fit. Gloria pats his chest to help him calm down. Dejectedly, Carol opens the door for the siblings, harsh coughs and groans from others can be heard from within the cell block. Gloria gives the older woman a soft smile.

“We’ll all be okay, everyone has a better chance now that I’m here.” she chuckles breathlessly.

Carol tearfully smiles back at her, knowing that she was being as strong as she can for everyone. The siblings enter the cell block and Gloria carries Glenn to an empty cell, letting him sit on the bed while she sits on the floor, leaning on the wall across from him. The atmosphere of the entire cell block is eerily solemn as coughs and groans echo throughout the block. The chorus of groans and coughs are soon joined by Glenn who starts to have a coughing fit. When Gloria starts to get up to try and soothe him, Glenn raises his arm up to stop her from moving.

“N-no…” he chokes out between coughs, “I-I’m okay… I’m okay…”

Gloria frowns at him and sighs, but listens to him, staying in her spot. A short moment later after Glenn’s coughing had died down, she gets up and exits the cell, wanting to get some water for her brother. She jogs up to the entrance of the cell block where Carol had been guarding the door and when she sees Gloria, she opens the door slightly.

“What’s wrong?” Carol asks.

“Can you help me get some water for Glenn? He’s choking in there.” Gloria replies, leaning on the doorframe.

Before Carol is able to respond, they hear quick paced footsteps coming down the hall and soon Daryl appears around the corner with a cloth over his face. He stops in his tracks when he sees Gloria peering behind the door and registers how pale her face is. Carol glances over at him then back at Gloria, a somber look on her face.

“I’ll go get you and Glenn some water.” she says then goes off, patting Daryl’s arm as she walks by him.

Gloria stands at the door, holding it open slightly as she looks up at Daryl, his tearful eyes boring into hers breaks her heart. He starts to walk closer to her. 

“You shouldn’t come too close, there’s only so much that cloth can do.” Gloria hurriedly tells him, raising her hand up to stop him, halting him in his steps.

Daryl sighs and nods, knowing that she’s right. He wipes his eyes with his hands of the tears that were threatening to fall. 

“‘M goin’ out for a medicine run, wanted to take ya with me… we needed someone with medical knowledge… can’t exactly take Hershel or Caleb.” Daryl rambles, trying to distract himself from breaking down at the sight of his girl so frail and sick. 

“Sorry I can’t go with you…” Gloria says, chuckling breathily, “take Bob, he was a medic or something like that, he should be able to help.”

“A’right.” Daryl nods, “we’ll hurry back with what ya need.” 

He hesitates to turn around, reluctant to leave her but knows that he has to. Just before Daryl’s about to dash out to go on the run, Gloria calls out to him, waiting for him to face her again before she speaks her next words.

“I love you.” she says, her voice full of emotion.

Gloria needed him to know that she loves him too. She doesn’t know how long he’ll be gone and she has absolutely no idea how quick the illness is going to progress with her. In the worst case scenario that he couldn’t make it back in time, she couldn’t let herself die without telling him first. 

Daryl understood this as well as he smiles sadly, “I’ll be back for ya, jus’ wait for me!”

Without waiting for another response, Daryl rushes out just as Carol comes back with two bottles of water and Gloria’s belt with her daggers. Gloria takes the items but furrows her brows together when she sees her weapons.

“If anyone turns in there, you’ll need them.” Carol says, reading her mind. 

Gloria sighs and nods, looking back up at Carol, “Thanks Carol.” 

—

Glenn’s coughing had lessened after Gloria gave him a bottle of water. Hershel had come into the cell block but not as a patient, instead as a doctor to help everyone. He had brewed a special tea made from elderberries; Hershel’s late wife always made the tea as a natural flu remedy. Gloria tried to get him to leave the cell block before he caught the flu as well but he was insistent, not giving her the choice of kicking him out of the block. Her only alternative was to follow him around and assist him in treating the patients. Hershel was now crouching down beside Glenn, holding a wet towel to his forehead to bring down his fever, Gloria sitting beside them.

“This sucks…” Glenn sighs, “after everything we’ve been through, this damn flu is what takes us down.” 

Hershel frowns at his words, “don’t say things like that.”

“I’ve fallen down a hill, got shot and stabbed. Not even a walker herd could kill me, I ain’t letting some damn cold kill me.” Gloria says, leaning her head back on the wall behind her and closing her eyes. 

Glenn chuckles, “you really are starting to talk like Daryl.”

“He’s been copying your cheesy lines, you know? You’re a bad influence.” Gloria jokes.

“Hey, he’s learning from the best.” he smiles weakly.

Hershel smiles at the sibling’s banter then glances over at Gloria, his smile turns into a frown when he sees how frail and sick Gloria looked. 

“Gloria, you’ve helped me a lot, go rest in an empty cell.” Hershel orders her.

Gloria opens her eyes and looks at him as Glenn looks over at her too, noticing the same thing, “yeah, you’re getting paler by the second, go.” 

She purses her lips but nods, not wanting to fight them on it. She gets up and walks to the cell just beside Glenn’s and lets herself fall on the bed. Her body must have been exhausted as she had fallen asleep just mere seconds after her body hit the bed. She wasn’t even sure how long she slept but by the time she woke up to a series of coughing in a nearby cell, it was already dark in the cell block. Gloria gets up to check on whoever was coughing and to her horror, she saw Glenn on the ground of his cell, coughing up blood. 

“Hershel!” Gloria screams out as she rushes towards Glenn, kneeling down next to Glenn who was still coughing.

Her back was facing Henry, the person Glenn was helping with the airbag Hershel had provided him with. Soon, from the lower levels, she heard gunshots and she could only imagine that it was Hershel shooting at those who had died and turned into walkers. Gloria starts to panic when she sees that Glenn had stopped coughing, and instead started to choke. 

“His airways are blocked.” Gloria talks out loud, trying to calm herself down and calling out her professional side, “you gotta clear the airway… you gotta clear his airway.” 

She freezes when she hears a snarling coming from behind her and snaps her head to look behind her. Gloria gasps as she sees that Henry had turned into a walker but her focus is on the equipment attached to his mouth; the airbag and tube that she needed to save Glenn.

“I’m not losing you.” she mutters under her breath as she glances at Glenn.

Gloria unsheaths a dagger from her belt, about to lunge at the walker but it gets her first, falling off the bed and putting all of its deadweight on her. She struggles to push it up as it grabs hold of her hair, luckily it is unable to bite her with the medical tools in its mouth. Wielding her dagger, Gloria stabs the walker through its eye, killing it right as Hershel runs up the stairs with Maggie trailing close behind him.

“Gloria, are you alright?” Maggie asks from behind her father. 

Gloria nods then directs their attention to Glenn, “help him.” she says breathlessly.

Maggie gasps as she rushes to his side with Hershel. Gloria takes the air bag and tube out from the walker’s mouth before pushing the body off her. She hands the tools to Hershel so he can get to saving Glenn. The girls watch anxiously as Hershel forces the tube into Glenn’s open mouth and down his throat to clear his airway. He then starts to pump air into his lungs using the air bag, allowing him to breathe. Seeing that he was able to breathe now, Gloria smiles softly and looks up at Maggie, giving her a reassuring nod. Maggie, although her face is stained with tears, smiles and nods back at her, relieved that they had gotten to Glenn in time.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

The group that went out for the medicine run had come back to the prison. Daryl made it his first priority to find Gloria and give her the medicine. Fear and worry course through his veins as he makes his way to Cell Block A, going through each cell until he finds her sleeping soundly on the bed. He lets out a heavy sigh, relieved that she was still breathing. Daryl walks to her and sits beside her on the bed, the dip in the mattress was enough movement to wake her up from her light sleep. Gloria’s eyes flutter open and she smiles up at Daryl.

“Hey there, sunshine.” Daryl smiles down at her, he props her up, letting her lean on his chest. 

“Hi,” she whispers, “you made it back to me.”

Daryl nods as he gives her two pills and opens the bottle of water that was sitting on the floor next to the bed, “ya doubted me?”

“Of course not, I’d never doubt you.” Gloria says, then pops the pills into her mouth before washing them down with water, “I almost lost Glenn though…”

He nuzzles into her hair, “Glenn’s tough, ain’ nothin’ gon’ happen to him.” 

“Yeah.” Gloria chuckles, “guess that’s where I got it from too.”

Daryl wraps his arms around her, snuggling her close to him, “ya know when I fell for ya?” 

“Was it when I seduced you at the C.D.C.?” she jokingly responds, glancing up at him.

He scoffs at her answer, “ya didn’ seduce me, ya straight up asked me to sleep with ya.” 

Gloria shifts her body to look at him with a smirk, “but it worked.”

“Yeah yeah…” Daryl rolls his eyes playfully and chuckles, “‘t was back at the quarry… when ya were able to beat up Merle.”

“You liked me because I could do something you couldn’t?” Gloria giggles.

“Nah,” he says then kisses her forehead, “‘t’s ‘cause ya were the only one who had the guts to do it, ya could hold yer own and not depend on others to protect ya, I knew I wouldn’ need to worry ‘bout ya.” 

“But you still worry about me.” Gloria calls him out on his confession.

“That’s ’cause I love ya.” Daryl says, looking deep into her eyes. 

She blushes at his words, smiling shyly as he leans in and kisses her passionately on the lips. Gloria kisses him back but then pushes him away.

“Wait, Daryl. I’m still sick, remember?” she pouts. 

“Don’ care.” is all he says before capturing her lips with his again. 

Gloria giggles at his persistence, giving in and wrapping her arms around his neck. Daryl shifts his body so that he’s on top of her, his hand caressing her face while his other rests on her waist. His position on her allows him to deepen the kiss, earning several soft moans from her lips. Daryl pulls away from the kiss and looks Gloria deep in the eyes, both of them breathless from the intensity of the kiss. 

“Did ya mean it?” he asks in a breathy whisper, his lips hovering over hers. 

Gloria furrows her brows at him, confused, “what?”

“When ya said ya loved me, did ya mean it?” he reiterates.

“You think I would lie about something like that?” Gloria retorts, pouting.

Worry fills Daryl’s heart as he takes in Gloria’s tone and expression. He didn’t mean to upset her with the question, he just wanted to know. He understood why she said it the time that she did, and he would also understand if she just said it without meaning it. Of course he wouldn’t be fine with that, but he’d accept it, he would have to.

Gloria moves her hand to caress his face, “I love you, Daryl.”

Her voice was full of sincerity, the worry in his heart now replaced by warmth and comfort at the words. Her eyes glisten as she looks up at him, full of adoration for the man above her. Gloria pulls him down to meet her lips again as she kisses him repeatedly, whispering the three words over and over again with each kiss. The hand that was resting on her waist moves up to tangle itself in her hair, causing Gloria to giggle slightly. 

The couple’s loving moment is ruined when there is a rumble within the prison walls. It seemed to be caused by some kind of explosion. Daryl pushes himself up off the bed and looks worriedly towards Gloria. 

“Stay here.” he tells her then rushes off to find out what had happened. 

Daryl’s gone out of the cell before Gloria could respond. She gets off the bed and goes to the doorway of the cell she’s in. She sees Glenn peering out of his cell as well.

“What was that?” he asks, a perplexed and worried expression on his face.

“I don’t know…” she says, a sinking feeling in her stomach that something really bad is about to happen.

The siblings wait patiently for Daryl or Maggie or anyone to come back and tell them what happened but the next thing they hear is gunfire erupting from outside the prison. Anxious, Glenn rushes to the stairs and starts to head down with Gloria following him. Maggie rushes into the cell block, meeting the siblings at the bottom of the stairs.

“What the hell is going on?!” Glenn shouts over the sound emitting from outside. 

“We need to go! Now!” Maggie yells at them, ushering both of them outside.

Before they can reach the exit of the cell block though, the wall explodes, sending the three of them tumbling to the ground. Maggie and Gloria help Glenn up from the ground and they run outside. Maggie leads them to the grey school bus and ushers both of them in. She tells them that she’s going to find Beth then rushes off, leaving Glenn helplessly behind. 

“G-Gloria?” an elderly lady who was already seated on the bus calls out when she sees her.

Gloria goes over to her and kneels down so that she’s eye level with her, “hey Linda, what’s wrong?”

“M-my heart, it’s beating really f-fast, i-it feels like it’s going to explode.” she tells her, Linda’s breaths are sharp and quick.

Gloria grasps the elder woman’s wrist gently but firm enough to feel that the woman’s heart rate was indeed quicker than it was supposed to be, “Linda, you’re going to be okay, I just need you to breathe with me, take deep breaths, in through your nose out through your mouth, okay? Breathe with me.”

She uses her free hand to guide Linda with her breathing, raising her hand for every inhale and lowering it for every exhale, taking exaggerated breaths for Linda to follow her example. After a few moments of guiding Linda through her breathing, Gloria feels that her heart rate was slowing down to a normal pace. 

“Are you feeling better?” Gloria asks, she had to make sure.

Linda smiles gratefully at her and nods, “y-yes, thank you.”

Gloria smiles at her and nods then stands back up when the bus starts to move. She looks around but doesn’t see Glenn, Maggie, or Beth. She had to guess that Glenn couldn’t just sit in the bus while Maggie was out on the battlefield. She rushes to the bus driver, careful not to stumble over in the moving vehicle.

“Stop the bus! The others aren’t on yet! Hey!” Gloria shouts at him, she wasn’t about to leave her family behind. 

“I can’t! That would put everyone on this bus in danger and I’m not going to have all of these lives on my hands, not if I can help it!” he shouts back at her, not even slowing down the vehicle. 

Gloria sighs, knowing the predicament he was in and knew she couldn’t stop him. Gloria takes one more look back at the prison, her heart breaking when she sees that a tank had driven through their fences, tearing down what they had built, destroying their home, their safe place. She frowns as a figure in the courtyard catches her eyes, there was a man with an eyepatch fighting Rick. The Governor had returned to destroy them. She looks around, the bus was filled with the older folk from Woodbury. They were the Governor’s old civilians, but she couldn’t leave them behind, they needed her. Her family would not leave them behind, Glenn wouldn’t, Daryl wouldn’t.

The bus is going full speed as Gloria sits down by the driver’s side, she pulls out a map that was tucked in behind the driver’s seat and looks at it. She needed to find a safe place to take everyone. Finding their road on the map, she quickly spots the are of the abandoned warehouse her family had stayed during the winter. It was relatively close and big enough for them all. As Gloria’s about to tell him about the warehouse, the driver lets out a yelp and turns the bus sharply, trying to avoid the herd of walkers in the road. The passengers of the bus scream in fear and panic as the bus ends up hitting a bunch of walkers and tumbles to a rough stop. 

—

Gloria opens her eyes and groans at the soreness in her body from the crash. She feels a deadweight on top of her and she looks around to see that the entire bus was either full of walkers or dead bodies that have yet to turn. Her breath hitches when she realizes that the deadweight on her was the body of one of the passengers, Linda. Fortunately, she hadn’t reanimated yet but Gloria wasn’t about to wait for her to turn. She puts her forearm under Linda’s chin pushing her upwards so that she wouldn’t bite her once she awoke. With her free hand, she slowly reaches down to retrieve one of her daggers from her belt. Gloria freezes when she feels that Linda’s body her started to move on. Her lifeless eyes open and she begins to snarl at Gloria, trying to bite at her. 

Gloria whimpers as she struggles with the walker, with all of its weight on her and moving, it’s much harder for her to get her dagger from its sheath. Gloria pushes Linda upwards again with her forearm, giving her a little more space between her and Linda and finally, she manages to get her dagger out. Taking a firm hold on it, she gouges the dagger through Linda’s eye socket, killing her reanimated form instantly. Looking around her, Gloria sees that many of the other bodies have started to reanimate and if she didn’t think fast, she’d never see her family ever again.

“Okay… think think think…” Gloria whispers silently to herself.

She looks to the dead walker on top of her then remembers the time Rick and Glenn had used walker guts to mask their living scent and blend in with the other walkers. Gloria cringes at the thought but she needed to do it to survive. She knew she was going to regret the decision later but right now, she didn’t have any other choice. Using the dead walker on top of her as an advantage, Gloria pulls out her dagger from Linda’s eye. She looks at her dead face and whispers out an apology before plunging the dagger into her chest. She proceeds to drag her dagger vertically down the walkers body, blood and guts coating her. 

Shuddering at the feeling of the disgusting substance on her skin, she pushes the walker off her. Cautiously, she looks around to make sure that none of the walkers take notice that she’s alive and she lets out a short breath of relief when they pay her no mind. She gets up to a crouch, realizing that the bus has tumbled onto its side, she sees that the emergency roof exit is her easiest way out. She makes her way to it, pulls the hatch and crawls out of the bus. She closes the exit behind her to make sure that none of the walkers inside the bus can get out. Gloria sprawls on the ground, exhausted but then she realizes that there were more walkers on the road. 

The loud bus crash must have attracted more walkers to the area, she needed to get away and fast. Getting up, Gloria makes her way into the woods. She wasn’t sure where she would end up, but she needed to get away from that area. She needed to get to some kind of shelter before it got too dark.

—

Gloria had been travelling alone in the woods for a few days, taking shelter in some abandoned cars and empty tents. She was still covered in walker guts and blood, although absolutely repulsive as days went by, it worked perfectly for blending in with walkers, preventing her from becoming walker food. 

Relief flooded her when she found the emergency cabin her and Daryl stumbled upon from one of their hunting trips. It was in good condition and they had stored some supplies inside in case anything happened at the prison or they got lost. Gloria walked up to it, hoping with everything in her that Daryl was there waiting for her. However, the hope left her as soon as it came when she opened the door and saw that the cabin was exactly the way they had left it; empty yet tidy. Sighing, she walks in and closes the door behind her, deciding that this would be her refuge for the night. 

She lights a candle, creating enough light for her to see around the cabin but faint enough so that it would be undetected from the outside. Gloria goes to the cupboard where her and Daryl had stocked up food and takes a few cans for dinner. Her hunger was catching up to her as well as her thirst. She then lets herself fall into a light slumber. 

She sleeps for a few hours until sunlight peaks into the room through the windows, disturbing her from her rest. Gloria pushes herself up from the ground to sit up, looking around and her eyes stop on a dresser. She gets up and walks to it, opening it to reveal the clothes her and Daryl had kept stored. She changes out of her dirty clothes, putting on a fresh grey tank top and dark jeans when an item in the dresser catches her eye; Daryl’s navy blue button up shirt. Gloria picks up the fabric as tears well up in her eyes.

“Daryl…” 

Emotion overcomes her as she realizes that she may never see her family ever again. She cries at the heartache and how much she misses them. The hardest part was not even knowing if they were alive or not. Her worst fear being if she found them already turned, Gloria didn’t know whether or not she would be able to kill them as walkers. She’d always been fine killing walkers, but she never had to kill one of someone she knew. 

Her legs gave way, falling to her knees as she sobs into Daryl’s shirt. All of the emotions for the past few days hitting her at once; she was angry, sad, hopeless, and alone. For the first time in her life, she had no one with her. She had to find her family, she had to find Glenn, she had to find Daryl. She had to.

_“I’ll always be able to find ya.”_

Daryl’s words echoed and his smirk flashed through her mind. Wiping away her tears, her memories of Daryl had given her a new sense of determination. Gloria throws Daryl’s shirt on over her tank top and then gets up, going around the cabin to gather the supplies they had left there into an army duffle bag she had left here from before. She packs up cans of food, bottles of water, and the first aid kit she’d prepared before just for the cabin. After she gets everything packed up, she leaves the cabin to find her family. She was never going to give up on finding them. Wherever they were, she’d find them.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

Gloria had been wandering through the woods for hours. The trees proved to be no shade for her as the rays of sun beat down on her. She’d taken off Daryl’s shirt and tied it around her waist, wanting to make it cooler even just a little. She’d been looking for signs of her group, any tracks, trails or things left before. Anything that told her that maybe someone had been around but her tracking skills were nothing compared to Daryl’s. Gloria would be able to find tracks of animals or footprints but never could tell how old or new they were. 

As she continues to trudge through the woods, she stops in her tracks as she hears the unmistakable clicking of a gun from behind her. Not turning around, Gloria slowly raises her arms up to show whoever was holding the gun that she was no threat.

“Turn around, slowly!” the person tells her, Gloria can’t help but think that the voice sounded familiar, “no sudden movements, or I’ll shoot you!”

Listening to whoever it was, Gloria slowly turns around to face them. She almost lets out a curse as she sees Nina standing in front of her, pointing a gun in her direction. Nina smirks when she sees that it’s Gloria, happy that she has the upper hand. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Gloria mutters under her breath. 

“I want everything you have, the bag, your daggers, everything!” Nina orders her.

Gloria looks at the gun Nina’s holding and then takes a step towards Nina, only to make Nina tighten her hold on the weapon, “stay back! Or I really will shoot!”

“No, you won’t. You wanted to kill me before and if you were going to shoot, you would have already.” Gloria challenges her, hoping that what she saw before was right, “plus, if you pull the trigger, you’re going to attract every walker in the area right to you.”

“Don’t test me.” Nina seethes making Gloria take another step towards her, “I’m warning you!” 

Not heeding the warning, Gloria takes another step to Nina and it’s too close for Nina’s comfort. She pulls the trigger but the gun only makes a light clicking sound, but it wasn’t the sound of an empty gun. Taking one final step towards Nina, Gloria quickly reaches out and grabs Nina’s wrist, dragging her arm down diagonally and taking the gun out of her grip with her other hand. Once she has the weapon, she lets go of Nina’s wrist and pushes her away. 

“Safety was on, dumbass.” Gloria says after looking at the gun, confirming what her eye caught earlier was correct, she then tucks the gun under her belt. 

“You’re just gonna take the gun? Just like you took everything else from me?!” Nina yells, her voice very obviously distraught.

Gloria eyes her, “you tried to kill me, twice now. I’m pretty sure we’re even.”

“Take me back to the prison and tell Rick to let me back in!” Nina shouts at her.

“If you want to go back to the prison, no one’s stopping you!” Gloria snaps, “there’s no one but walkers to keep you out now.” 

She turns around and walks away from Nina who’s now perplexed by Gloria’s words, “what do you mean by that? What happened at the prison? Is everyone dead?!”

Gloria halts at Nina’s last words and sighs, “the Governor came back for revenge, they blew the place up and I don’t know where anyone is.”

Nina stutters, speechless. She doesn’t know what to say to that. When Gloria hears silence from the other woman, she continues on her way. If she wasn’t already exhausted from trudging around on her own, she would have kept her promise and shot Nina, but she needed to be mindful that she was out in the open with walkers roaming about. The loud bang of the gun would instantly attract walkers straight to her, and that wasn’t the most ideal. 

“Wait!” Nina calls out to her.

Rolling her eyes in annoyance, she turns around, “What?!”

Nina looks to the ground, looking somewhat ashamed, “do you… do you have any food? I haven’t eaten in days,” she looks up to meet Gloria’s eyes, “I-I know wasn’t good to you…”

“You stabbed me and left me to be eaten by walkers.” Gloria says flatly.

“Yeah, but you didn’t die so you shouldn’t even be that upset about it!” Nina argues. 

Gloria gawks at her retort, if she had not met Nina, she would not believe that there was someone who was this selfish and shameless. She scoffs in disgust then turns away without saying anything to her when a person appears in front of her armed with a shotgun. He smirks at the two women in front of him.

“Well, look at what we have here!” the man bellows, “looks like it’s our lucky day, boys!”

Gloria glances around behind her and sees that she’s surrounded by a group of seven men, all armed with guns. She curses under her breath, she’d been distracted by Nina’s stupidity that she didn’t even realize that she’s been tracked. The man in front of Gloria steps towards her, but not without looking her up and down with a sneer on his face.

“Claimed on the one unarmed!” one of the men shouts out suddenly.

“Then I claim the other!” another chimes in.

The one who seems to be the leader of the pack raises his hand to quiet down his men, “now now, you all know the rules. We don’t claim women. We’re gentlemen.” 

He takes a step towards Gloria and she instantly backs up a step, not worrying about Nina; she was unarmed while these men were rough and heavily armed, Nina was the last of her concerns right now. 

“Name’s Joe. Say, you’ve got an awfully large bag there that I would not mind to help you carry, after all, I **am** a gentleman when it comes to lovely ladies like yourself.” the man introduces.

Gloria has to hold her urge to gag at Joe’s words, “I’ll give you the bag if you let me go.” 

“Nuh uh uh! I can’t do that, if all I wanted was the bag, all I have to do is claim it… but I don’t just want the bag.” Joe says lowly then looks around to his men, “get to work, boys!”

The others start to close in on Nina and Gloria, ropes in their hands to tie them up. Nina looks to Gloria, knowing she can fight, but she does nothing. Gloria wasn’t about to take her chances with seven armed men, she was more than certain that they all knew how the safety worked. 

—

The men had taken them to some cottage cabin that Joe and his group had taken over as their camp. They took Gloria’s bag, daggers and gun as well as the necklace Glenn had given her, saying something along the lines of her things now being ‘claimed’. She would have fought back, but there was nothing she could do with multiple guns aimed at her. They threw her into a room and locked her inside with her hands and feet tied together with rope. Nina was taken to another room but the walls had to be rather thin as Gloria could hear Nina screaming and crying as if she were in the same room. What they were doing to her, she didn’t want to know.

Gloria takes her focus away from Nina’s cries and looks around the room for any way to escape. She spots a window but it’s barred from the outside, either to keep walkers out or keep whoever Joe and his men captured in. She shuffles over to the window and pulls herself up by the window’s ledge once she’s at it. Now standing by the window, she grunts as she elbows the glass, shattering it. Gloria looks down at the pieces of glass, finding one large enough to cut the ropes. She picks it up, ignoring the sting as the glass cuts up her hands. She sets herself back down on the ground and places the glass in between her knees to hold it upright and begins to cut the rope. Once her bloodied hands are free, she works on the restraints tying her feet together. 

Footsteps coming down the hall make Gloria freeze and she also hears Nina’s sobs getting louder. They were bringing her back to the room. Gloria puts her hands behind her back, creating the illusion that she was still tied up but keeps the piece of glass in her hands. The door opens and Nina is shoved into the room. Her clothes torn, hair a mess and stuck to her tear stained face. She falls to the ground and continues to sob. The burly man who shoved her inside comes into the room and looks directly at Gloria, pure lust in his eyes, not even noticing that the window was shattered. 

“Claimed,” he snarls as he makes his way towards her and leans down to grab her, assuming to take her out of the room to do whatever the hell he did to Nina. 

Once he reaches her though, Gloria swings her arm up and plunges the piece of glass into the man’s neck. He falls to the ground, gurgling on his own blood for a moment before his body stills, dead. 

Gloria backs away slightly from the bloody mess and looks over at Nina who had just witnessed her murder one of their captors, a grimace on her face as she stifles her cries. Gloria takes the machete and gun from the dead man’s belt and walks to the door.

“H-hey, wait! Aren’t you going to free me?!” Nina cries out, her voice as desperate as ever.

Gloria turns back to the other woman, “no funny business, alright? You can only get out of here with my help and if you don’t want those guys to hurt you again, you better stay in line.” 

She nods and raises her arms up, waiting for Gloria to cut the restraints which she does after a bit of hesitation. Gloria hoped Nina knew better than to try anything when they were still in Joe’s camp. She then cuts the restraints on her feet as well, freeing her legs. Nina gets up from the ground and looks at Gloria.

“I’ll need a weapon.” she says.

Gloria eyes her, hesitating before glancing down at the machete in her hand, “do not make me regret this… I still have a gun, just so you remember.”

She gives Nina the blade then makes her way to the closed door, slowly opening it to peer down the hallway. Seeing that their path is clear, she opens it more and heads out with Nina following behind her, sneaking down the hallway to try to find a way out of the cabin. Surprisingly, no one was patrolling or guarding the place. 

“They really just left one guy to watch us…” Gloria mutters, scoffing, feeling slightly offended that the men underestimated her.

Reaching what seems to be the main living room of the cabin, Gloria spots her bag and daggers sitting on a chair in plain sight. Still wary of her surroundings, she looks around to make sure that no one is hiding before making her way to her belongings. Before she reaches it though, the front door of the cabin swings open and one of Joe’s henchmen steps into the cabin and frowns when he sees Nina and Gloria wandering about.

“What the hell?!” he exclaims, reaching down to pull out his gun but Gloria beats him to it.

She pulls out the gun she had taken from the man she’d killed previously, aiming it towards the man who had just walked in, “don’t move.”

The man freezes at this then raises his hands above his head, “please, please don’t shoot.”

Both of their focus was on each other, no one paying attention to Nina as she glares at the man in the doorway, seething in anger. She catches both of their attention as she lets out a shriek, lunging towards the man and swinging the machete in her hand towards the man, striking his skull, killing him instantly. 

“Y-you didn’t need to…” Gloria stares at her wide-eyed, completely thrown off guard by her.

“You don’t know what they did to me!” Nina screams, facing Gloria with the bloody machete.

“You’re right, I don’t.” Gloria raises her hands in surrender, the last thing she needed was for Nina to start lashing out at her, “but you can’t keep making noise like this, we need to get out of here before any more of them come back.”

Quickly, Gloria goes to get her bag and belt of daggers. First attaching the belt, making sure that she was armed in case she ran into walkers. 

“Why… why did Daryl choose you…” Nina whimpers as she sobs then starts to yell, “Why did Daryl have to choose you?!”

“Ask him yourself when we find him!” Gloria snaps at the other woman.

Not bothering to wait for a response from Nina, Gloria starts to zip up her bag, only to stop midway as she spots movement in a mirror hanging off the wall in front of her. Nina approaches her quickly, wielding the machete above her head and swings it towards Gloria. She quickly dodges out of the way, Gloria spins to face her. She was mentally scolding herself for being so stupid and trusting Nina, she tried to kill her before so why would she stop now? Gloria watches Nina’s every movement, then reaches down to the gun tucked in her belt and raises it as Nina lunges towards her. Gloria pulls back the hammer and squeezes the trigger, shooting Nina in the head, her body falling limp to the ground, the metal clang of the machete sounds as it hits the floor. 

“That’s how the safety works…” Gloria says, leaning against the wall, panting at the close call. 

She holsters the gun again and goes to pick up her bag, slinging the straps on her shoulders and heads out of the cabin. She didn’t have time to search the bodies for her necklace; Gloria knew that the loud gunshot would have caught the attention of any walkers nearby and Joe’s men and she wasn’t going to take her chances with either. She dashes out into the woods, hiding behind trees and bushes when she hears voices of Joe’s men. Gloria stays as still as she can so that she doesn’t give away her hiding spot as the men go back towards the cabin. It would only be a matter of time before they get back and see the mess of bodies. She silently curses herself for shooting Nina in the head; she could have shot her chest and let her turn so she could be their problem but nope, she had to keep her promise. 

Gloria was able to hear the men as they finally found the dead bodies in their cabin so she made a run for it, hoping they didn’t catch the movement in the woods. Whether they did or not, she didn’t know as she just kept running away from the cabin, she just knew that she needed to get far away from Joe’s crew. Not looking behind her, she continues to run until she hits a road. Finally, Gloria slows down to a walking pace as she reaches the gravel and she comes to a stop as she pants heavily, trying to catch her breath. When she looks up the road, she frowns in confusion as she sees the overturned bus and three familiar people seemingly inspecting the vehicle. She begins to walk towards them while trying to figure out who they are and she breaks into a sprint when she recognizes Maggie, Sasha, and Bob. 

“Maggie! Sasha! Bob!” she calls out as she runs towards them.

Sasha seemed to be the first to hear her calls as she turns around with a frown but then it turns into a relieved smile, “Gloria…” 

The mention of her name makes Maggie turn to look at Sasha then follows her line of sight. A gasp escapes her lips as tears well up in her eyes. Maggie starts to run towards Gloria, meeting her halfway in a tight embrace. 

“You’re okay, you made it out.” Gloria says with a smile, pulling back from the hug, she glances towards Sasha and Bob then back at Maggie with a slight worried frown, “Glenn?”

Maggie purses her lips and shakes her head, “I was hoping he was with you…”

Sasha and Bob had walked down the road to meet the two and Gloria pulls Sasha into a hug, glad that the other was seemingly fine. Gloria smiles and nods at Bob who does the same in acknowledgement. 

“So, what’s the plan?” Gloria asks the three, figuring that if they had been travelling together, they should have had some sort of idea.

“I was about to check the bus in case Glenn was in there… I have to know.” Maggie tells her then she’s about to turn back to head towards the bus when Gloria grabs her arm to stop her.

“He’s not,” Gloria says, making Maggie look at her, “I was on the bus, Glenn got off before it left the prison.” 

“I don’t know whether or not to be relieved hearing that,” Maggie says with a slight chuckle.

“Relieved,” Gloria smiles at her reassuringly, “he’s alive, and we’ll find him. We’ll find all of them.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

“So, you’re telling us that you survived a bus crash too?” Sasha chuckles as she walks beside Gloria.

“Yep, I’m a survivor.” Gloria grins. 

“And apparently you keep all your promises too,” Maggie says, walking on the other side of Gloria, “you told Nina that the next time you see her, you’d shoot her in the face, and you did.”

Gloria chuckles at that and nods, “I honestly didn’t think anyone heard that.”

“Oh please, everyone in the room heard you loud and clear how protective you are of Daryl.” Sasha teases. 

A sad smile tugs at Gloria’s lips at the mention of Daryl. The four of them had been walking for a day already, trying to find any signs of their family and friends. Gloria had told the others that there were dangerous men in the woods so they decided it was best that they stayed off the road since they would be a clear target to anyone lurking in the woods. Eventually, they stumbled across a railroad track with a sign which held a map to a place called Terminus. 

‘SANCTUARY FOR ALL, COMMUNITY FOR ALL. THOSE WHO ARRIVE, SURVIVE’ the sign read, and seeing the sign, both Gloria and Maggie agreed that if Glenn or Daryl or anyone from their group for that matter came across the signs, they would head for it as well. With that in mind, the four of them continue following the railroad towards this place. 

“Ladies,” Bob calls out as he walks behind the three women, making them stop and turn to look at him, “we should set up camp, it’s getting dark.”

“Bob’s right,” Gloria says, “we should find a spot in the woods so we’re not a clear target for anyone to try anything.”

Agreeing with Gloria’s words, the four of them head into the woods to make their camp for the night. Sasha and Maggie busy themselves with the dimly lit campfire, heating up cans of food from Gloria’s bag. Gloria sits beside Bob as she takes out the blankets in her bag when she hears him hiss slightly. Frowning, she turns to look at him and sees that he had a gunshot wound on his shoulder.

“You need help with that?” Gloria asks, a friendly smile on her face.

He looks at her and chuckles, “yes please, nurse Gloria.”

She rolls her eyes at him and takes out the first aid kit from her bag and opens it. Gloria proceeds to help properly patch up Bob’s gunshot wound. She had to admit that with the resources they had, Maggie and Sasha did a good job with keeping the wound clean. 

“Gloria?” Bob says.

“Sorry, am I hurting you?” Gloria asks, glancing up at him as she patches up his wound.

“No, I barely feel it,” he starts, “I just… wanted to say I’m sorry.”

His words make her pause for a moment but she then continues to finish up with his injury, “sorry for what?”

“Daryl didn’t tell you?” he asks, looking genuinely surprised.

“Tell me what?” she asks, she crosses her arms once she’s finally done with his bandages, “just spit it out, Bob.”

“When he asked me to go on the run with them for medicine, I only went because I was the only one with medical knowledge who was in any condition to go, and we went through hell to get the medicine but I almost messed it all up…” Bob confesses.

“How?” Gloria furrows her brows, confused, the run seemed to go pretty well.

He sighs, “when we were supposed to be looking for medicine… I found a bottle… I don’t even know if it was scotch or whiskey but it was something… and I grabbed it… hid it in my bag… and I held on to it for dear life when it almost fell into a herd of walkers… and when Daryl found out that that’s all I had in my bag…”

“He almost killed you?” Gloria finishes his story.

Bob nods, “he told me that if anything happened to you, first thing he’d do was put a bolt in my head.”

“Then I guess you should be thanking me that I’m not easy to kill.” Gloria says with a small smile.

He looks at her and chuckles softly, nodding, “I’m just sorry that I nearly let you down… Daryl told me that you were the one to volunteer me to go on the run.”

“Apology accepted,” Gloria says, “you got the medicine for us and you saved a lot of us from whatever virus it was, you’re off the hook as long as you don’t do anything stupid like that again.”

He smiles gratefully at her, “can you tell Daryl that when we find him? I don’t want to always be avoiding him.”

Gloria chuckles and nods, “no promises, but I’ll talk to him.”

Later on in the night, the four of them ate their rations and proceeded to go to sleep. Maggie insisted to be the first on watch while the others rested. Throughout the night though, Gloria was unable to fall asleep. The worry that coursed through her veins plagued her mind, she was scared for her brother, for Daryl, for the others she had grown to call family. What if they couldn’t find them? She sighs heavily as she lays on her side when she notices Maggie seemingly picking up some things then getting up and walking into the woods. 

Gloria frowns and gets up, she didn’t want to call out to Maggie and wake Bob or Sasha. She didn’t want to cause any commotion in case Maggie just needed to relieve herself and wanted privacy. Wanting to make sure that Maggie was safe, Gloria goes to follow her silently, equipping her daggers to her belt. Soon, she learned that there was more to Maggie going off on her own as she continues to follow her. After a while though, Gloria lost track of Maggie. She didn’t want to be spotted by her in case it would upset Maggie so when Maggie stopped in her tracks, Gloria hid behind a nearby tree. By the time Gloria walked out from behind the tree, Maggie was gone. 

“Shit…” Gloria sighs, looking around to try and find her.

“Why are you following me.” Maggie says from behind her.

Gloria turns around, startled, “I… I saw you leaving the camp, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine, you can go back to the camp.” Maggie says assertively.

“Not without you,” Gloria says, stepping towards her, “what’s going on, Maggie? Why are you even out here alone in the first place? It’s dangerous-”

“I can handle my own!” Maggie snaps, taking Gloria aback, something definitely wasn’t right, “I don’t need to be protected, I can protect myself!”

“I’m not saying you can’t,” Gloria starts, “I know you’re tough and I know you can fight, I just don’t want anything to happen to you. You can handle walkers, I know that, but if you run into a herd or you get caught up with those guys I ran away from, I don’t even want to think about what could happen to you. It’s dangerous to be alone, especially at night.”

Tears glisten in Maggie’s eyes, “just go back… please…”

“At least tell me where you’re going.” Gloria says with a sigh.

“I’m going to find Glenn.” Maggie answers.

Gloria frowns at this, “then you’re taking me with you, we’ll find him together.”

“No!” Maggie snaps again, tears falling down her face, “I’ll find him, I have to find him, it has to be me!”

This was not like Maggie at all. She knew how much Glenn means to Gloria, how eager she is to find her brother; Maggie suddenly telling Gloria to stay back from finding him while she goes off to find him on her own told Gloria that Maggie was not alright.

“Maggie… talk to me, where’s this coming from?” Gloria carefully steps towards her and gently puts her hand on her arm.

She waits patiently for Maggie to speak, letting her take a few breaths and to collect her thoughts. Maggie looks her in the eyes and sighs before speaking.

“When the Governor came back… me and Beth… we watched as he slaughtered my daddy…” Maggie starts, tears rolling down her face, “I felt so much pain at that moment… I still do and I don’t know if it’ll ever go away…”

Gloria squeezes gently on Maggie’s arm, not knowing how to comfort her at her loss, “I’m sorry…”

Maggie shakes her head, “I thought to myself that no one should ever have to go through that kind of pain… but Beth did… I couldn’t protect her from it, but at least I can try and protect you.”

“Maggie…” Gloria frowns at her words.

“I don’t want you to be the one to find Glenn if anything happened to him… I don’t want you to see it and go through that pain…” Maggie says, holding Gloria’s arms firmly.

“Listen to me,” Gloria begins, “I appreciate you trying to protect me, but you can’t, not with this. Not without hurting yourself. If… if anything ever happened to Glenn, you’d be hurting too, I know it. You gotta let me be there for you just like you would be there for me. You’re my best friend, and if you weren’t already my sister-in-law, you’d still be my sister.” 

Maggie smiles tearfully at Gloria and pulls her in for a hug, “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“You’re lucky I love you,” she chuckles, hugging her back.

Maggie chuckles as well then pulls back from the hug, “so, what now?”

“Up to you, we can head back to our camp or go ahead to follow the tracks to Terminus.” Gloria suggests.

“It would be a waste of time to go back…” Maggie says thoughtfully, pursing her lips.

“Go ahead, then?” Gloria asks.

Maggie smiles softly and nods, “yeah,” she begins to lead the way towards the railroad tracks.

“Hey,” Gloria calls as she follows her, “if you ever need anyone to talk to, don’t be afraid to come to me, I’m here for you.”

“I know.” Maggie says with a grateful smile, “I’m here for you too.”

—

Gloria and Maggie had walked along the railroad tracks for over a day, throughout their journey, they’d found several signs and electrical units along the way. Maggie had the idea that they could write a sign to direct Glenn to head to Terminus. Gloria made sure to initial their names in case the others found their signs as well. As nightfall approaches, Gloria and Maggie stumble across an empty town.

“Should we set up camp up there?” Gloria suggests, nodding pointedly to the tall building in the middle of the town.

Maggie furrows her brows and shakes her head, “it’s getting pretty dark and we don’t know how many are in there, might take us all night to clear it.”

“You got a point,” Gloria nods in agreement then looks around, “let’s find a spot to make camp then?”

Maggie nods at that then follows Gloria into the town. The two end up sleeping by an arrangement of trucks, after killing a bunch of walkers and laying them around the area to create a decoy. However, the two are startled awake by the crashing of glass, neither of them knowing where the sound came from but they don’t have time to figure it out as walkers begin to surround their makeshift camp. Gloria takes out her daggers and swiftly stabs the walkers that come near her as Maggie had picked up a fallen sign, using it to smash at the heads of the walkers. 

“Sasha?” Maggie says as she swings her new weapon at the walkers.

Gloria glances over and sees Sasha standing on top of a nearby car, killing walkers with a stick. They catch each other’s eye and nod to one another. Once her coast is clear, Sasha jumps off the car hood and the three women are back to back as they fight the small herd of walkers. With their teamwork, the herd is killed off quickly. 

“Where’s Bob?” Maggie asks once the herd was cleared.

“He went off looking for the two of you,” Sasha replies, a disapproving look on her face, “why’d you two go off on your own?”

“I went off to find Glenn on my own, Gloria followed me,” Maggie says, “and I know that you think Glenn is most likely dead.”

“What?” Gloria asks, looking at Sasha, “you really think that?”

“I’m sorry… but I do.” Sasha sighs.

“Well, you’re wrong.” Gloria says firmly, “he’s alive and we’ll find him. Just like we’ll find Daryl, and Beth, and Tyreese.”

Sasha looks at Gloria with wet eyes at the mention of her brother’s name, “you really think so?”

“We can’t just give up on them, they wouldn’t give up on us.” Gloria tells her.

Sasha glances at Maggie who nods in agreement then back at Gloria, “okay… we should catch up with Bob then, he shouldn’t have gotten very far.”

With that, the three women head off to once again follow the railroad tracks towards Terminus. Just like Sasha said, Bob didn’t get very far as they soon saw him walking along the tracks. When they catch up to Bob, they all hug him, glad that he’s safe. Gloria shoots Maggie a look when she catches the lingering touches between Bob and Sasha. Maggie chuckles and returns a teasing grin to her but they stay silent; they’d have time to tease Sasha about Bob later. 

The four of them had been walking for hours and hours along the railroad tracks when they reached a dark tunnel with the tracks seemingly going straight through it. They stop walking at the entrance of the tunnel, snarling can be heard emitting from within. 

“What now?” Sasha asks, looking at the others.

“It’s too dark to go in, we won’t be able to see anything,” Maggie points out.

“We should go around, it’ll take a day or so but it’s better than going in there without any vision,” Bob suggests.

“That would take too long…” Gloria says and looks up at the tunnel’s structure, she points to it, “it seems flat up there, if we can climb around, we can maybe just walk straight across.”

“Sounds a lot better than going straight in.” Sasha says and they all nod in agreement.

Before trying to make their way on top of the tunnel, Gloria finds a stray walker and kills it. Maggie and Sasha assist her in gathering the blood from the walker to write a sign on the wall beside the tunnel to direct Glenn on where to go. Once the sign is written, they begin to make their way around the tunnel. They help each other up the steep sides of the hill surrounding the entrance of the tunnel and eventually make it up on top of the tunnel. 

As Gloria had predicted, there was a straight path across the tunnel. They saw that parts of the roof had caved in and it was needless to be said that it was a much better idea to go over rather than through it. Soon enough, they had made it to the other side of the tunnel. Gloria and Bob get down first and help Sasha and Maggie down. 

“Uh… guys?” Bob says just before Maggie jumps down with Gloria’s help. 

The women look in his direction then past him as they see a car with three people around it seemingly arguing with one another. They didn’t seem to notice them.

“Come on, let’s go quietly before they see us,” Sasha whispers.

Maggie and Bob nod at her words but Gloria isn’t able to look away from the three people. There was a rather buff looking redhead, a woman with pigtails and hoop earrings, and a man with a mullet wearing riot gear. Gloria eyes the man with the riot gear, it looked all too familiar. 

“Gloria?” Sasha whispers to her then calls out to her when Gloria begins to walk towards the group, “Gloria!”

“Hey!” Gloria shouts out to the three, she stops a fair distance from them as they stop arguing and look at her.

“Can we help you, missy?” the redhead belts out.

She points to the man with the mullet, “that riot gear, where did you get it?”

Maggie, Sasha, and Bob had no choice but to follow Gloria as she approached the three. The mention of the riot gear catches their attention and their eyes fall on the man wearing said riot gear. They now understood why Gloria had to confront them. The three strangers glance at the gear then back at Gloria.

“I asked you a question,” Gloria says, her patience running low as she pulls out the gun in her belt and aims it at the man with the mullet, “where the hell did you get the riot gear?!”

“Someone gave it to me!” the man with the mullet cowers with his hands up when he sees the gun pointed to him.

The redhead comes out from behind the car and stands in front of the man with the mullet, “he answered your question, now you put that thing down. **Now**.”

“Who?” Maggie steps up beside Gloria who doesn’t lower the gun, “who gave it to you? And where are they now?”

“A guy named Glenn,” the woman answers, she examines their faces when they hear her answer and that’s when it clicks, “you’re Maggie, Gloria, Sasha, and Bob.”

Gloria looks at Maggie who looks back at her, she then looks back at the strangers, “where is Glenn?”

“He went into that tunnel to look for you,” the redhead responds, “though I’m not sure if he made it out… I’m sorry, we parted ways after he decided to go through it.”

Gloria finally lowers the gun as Maggie looks back towards the tunnel. 

“Idiot…” Gloria mutters before dashing into the tunnel with Maggie right behind her.

“Are we seriously doing this?!” Sasha exclaims, bewildered as she watches her friends run into the tunnel.

Bob shrugs then follows the two making Sasha sigh and follow along as well. Gloria and Maggie continue to run when they hear gunshots coming from further inside the tunnel. He had to be close and from the sounds of it, he was in trouble. Somehow, light comes from behind the two of them as Sasha and Bob catch up and they all see a herd of walkers surrounding Glenn and another woman, trapped between the herd and the wreckage of the collapsed tunnel. 

“Get down!” a voice belts from behind them and that’s when they figured that the light came from the strangers’ car that followed them into the tunnel. 

Once Glenn and the woman are out of the way, the three strangers as well as Gloria, Bob, Sasha, and Maggie open fire into the herd, killing them all off quickly. After the herd of walkers was cleared, Gloria watches tearfully as Glenn comes out from his hiding spot and walks towards Maggie who had made her way to him. She smiles as they embrace, the two sobbing happily at being reunited. Gloria turns to look at the strangers who had come to their aid. 

“Thank you for helping us,” she says genuinely, “I’m sorry I was so hostile before.”

“No worries, you were just worried about your brother, I get it.” the redhead smiles, “by the way, I’m Abraham Ford, this is Eugene Porter, and Rosita Espinosa.”

“You already know our names,” Gloria chuckles. 

“Sis,” Glenn calls out as he walks towards her with Maggie behind him.

Gloria turns to face him and tears well up in her eyes, happy that he’s safe, but instead of hugging him, she hits his chest, “you’re a dumbass, you know that?! Huh? Going into a dark tunnel like that? What were you thinking?!”

Glenn just chuckles at her scolding then pulls her into a hug. He knew that she only yelled at him whenever she was scared for his well being and safety. Gloria clings to him as she sniffles, trying not to cry out loud but Glenn didn’t give up this chance to tease her.

“Are you crying on me?” he grins.

“No…” she whines, hiding her face in his shoulder, making Glenn and the others chuckle. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

The group decided to take up camp inside the tunnel. They had barricaded the other side so that the only entrance would be on the far end of the tunnel and by the time anyone or anything tried to get in, the group would hear it and be prepared. Eugene had created a campfire in the middle of the tracks as the others cleared up the rest of the bodies. Now, they were all sitting by the campfire, huddled together as Abraham told Sasha, Bob, and Gloria about their plans to go to Washington. Apparently, Eugene knew what had caused the outbreak and they were on a mission to fix it, cure whatever disease they were all infected with and maybe even repair the whole world. 

“What’s up?” Maggie asks when her, Glenn, Rosita, and Tara, the woman who helped Glenn, joins them by the campfire.

“He just said,” Sasha says, pointing to Abraham, then at Eugene, “that he knows what caused the outbreak.”

“Yeah, he does… and let me guess, he asked you to go to DC with him?” Glenn says, crossing his arms. 

“I’m downright tickled y’all found each other. Should spend the rest of the night celebrating, because tomorrow there’s absolutely no reason why the nine of us don’t stuff ourselves in that van and head up to Washington.” Abraham says, matter-of-factly. 

“He’s right,” Tara says, “I’m gonna go.”

Gloria looks around the group as they all seem to be in silent agreement, “no, he’s wrong.”

“And why’s that?” Abraham says with a frown.

“Because you said there’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn't go to Washington together, well I have a reason not to go.” Gloria says, she then turns to Glenn, “now that I know you’re alive, you and Maggie go with them, it’s safer for you in a group.”

“No!” Glenn protests, “no way in hell am I letting you go off on your own, if you’re not going then neither am I.”

“And may we know what your reason is?” Abraham pushes, his tone was condescending as if any reason she gave wouldn’t be enough.

“There’s someone else I need to find, and I’m not going anywhere without him.” Gloria tells him straightforwardly. 

Knowing that she was talking about Daryl, Glenn reaches out to her and gently grabs her arm, “then we’ll find him together.”

The group turned in for the night and Gloria took it upon herself to take first watch. She sits on the side of the railroad track and looks out towards the only entrance and exit point of the tunnel. She sighs as she feels the lingering void in her heart. Earlier when they were all sharing their rations, Gloria couldn’t help but feel alone. She was happy that Bob and Sasha had each other, ecstatic that Glenn and Maggie found each other again, and it seemed like Abraham and Rosita had something between them. Being surrounded by couples, it was hard not to miss Daryl. She tugs the shirt that she was wearing around her, wrapping it tightly around her, Daryl’s shirt. 

“I hope you’re okay…” she whispers as if he could hear it. 

Gloria was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice that Glenn had approached her until he sat down beside her. She quickly wipes the stray tear that fell then glances at him.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asks him.

“What kind of brother would I be if I slept while my little sister is crying to herself?” Glenn says, looking at her, “talk to me.”

“I’m scared… what if I don’t find him… what if he’s already…” she sighs deeply, unable to finish her sentence before her emotions take over. 

“Hey… come here,” Glenn says as he wraps his arm around her, pulling her into a comforting embrace, “we’ll find him, I already convinced the others to go to Terminus, that’ll be the first place we look, and if he isn’t there, we don’t go to DC until we find him.”

“What if he didn’t make it out…” Gloria softly sobs out.

“He made it,” Glenn reassures her, “if anyone made it out, it’s him, you know more than anyone how much of a fighter he is.”

Gloria nods and snuggles into her brother, “I miss him…”

“I know, and I’m sure he misses you too. He’s probably doing everything he can to find you too. Tell you what, if he’s not there at Terminus when we get there, we can wait for him to find us, what do you say?” Glenn suggests.

A small smile tugs at Gloria’s lips and she nods. She remembers back to Daryl’s words, that he’d always be able to find her. She knew that Glenn was right, if anyone made it out from the prison, it would be Daryl. She felt guilty that she almost gave in to thinking that he might have died in the battle. Gloria needed to have faith and trust that Daryl is still alive and looking for her as well. 

—

“So… you and Bob?” Gloria teases Sasha as she walks beside her.

“Ugh, I **knew** I was gonna hear it from you sooner or later,” Sasha shakes her head but there was still a smile on her face. 

“I’m just surprised,” Maggie chimes in, “we both thought you hated him.”

“I did not,” Sasha rolls her eyes. 

“Then you just thought he was extremely annoying?” Gloria asks.

“Hey, I’m right here and I can hear you,” Bob calls out, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

“I know,” Gloria grins at him teasingly.

“Guys,” Glenn calls out as he leads the group, “I think we found it…”

It was a day’s walk from the tunnel to Terminus but there it was, standing tall with fences around it. Large letters in the windows that read TERMINUS. The group of nine glance at each other before making their way to the gate, pushing it open and walking towards the large building. They see a sign that directs them into the alleyway between the arrangement of buildings.

“‘Lower your weapons, you will be met. You have arrived at Terminus’.” Gloria reads the sign that was displayed on the main entrance of the building, she looks at Glenn, “should we listen?”

“They’ll only be hostile if we are, so, yeah, I say we listen.” Glenn says.

The others agree with him and enter the premises with their weapons lowered. As they walk through the alleyway, they are soon met by the backside of a woman who seems to be cooking on a barbeque stove. She seems to have noticed the group as she turns around and greets them with a welcoming smile.

“Hi, I’m Mary,” she says as she walks in front of the barbeque, “looks like you’ve been on the road a while.”

“We have,” Maggie responds for the whole group.

“Let’s get you settled and we’ll make you a plate.” Mary says then adds with a smile, “welcome to Terminus.”

“Thank you, uh, I’m Glenn, this is my sister Gloria, my wife Maggie, Bob, Sasha, Tara, Rosita, Eugene, and Abraham.” he says, gesturing to each respective person as he introduces the group. 

“Pleased to meet you all,” she says, then she goes back behind the stove and puts some pieces of meat on the grill, “Gareth! Alex! Please come out here and welcome our new group of friends!”

Soon enough, two men come out and greet the group with a smile, “hi! I’m Gareth and this is Alex. First we’d like to welcome you to Terminus. If you don’t mind coming with us to that building over there, that’s where we will be starting the welcoming process, you know the basics, screening, checking your weapons, questioning, and all that. I hope you understand that even though we’re welcoming to every person, we still need to think of our safety.”

The approach of the procedure seemed understandable and so the group agreed to follow Gareth and Alex into the building he had pointed to earlier. Once they were outside the building, Gareth began explaining the details of the procedure.

“As I mentioned, there is a questioning process and I hope you guys understand that we will only be letting in one person at a time. The reason for that is the last time we did a group questioning… well let’s just say that some of the people who were with us when it happened, aren’t here anymore, and we don’t want anything close to that happening ever again.” Gareth explains.

They all nod at this, it seems reasonable since they were only trying to protect their own people. However, something about it rubbed Gloria the wrong way. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she just didn’t get a good feeling about the place now that she was actually here. Abraham was the first one to go in for questioning as he wanted to make sure it was safe for Eugene to go in right after him. 

“ _Older brother_ ,” Gloria says in Korean softly to Glenn, “ _I don’t have a good feeling about this place_.”

Glenn looks at her and responds in Korean, “ _come on, we already made it and you have a bad feeling now?_ ”

“ _I can’t explain it but I just don’t…_ ” she says then looks around and eyes the meat on the barbeque, “ _isn’t this place supposed to be a train station?_ ”

“ _I think so, why?_ ” Glenn asks.

“ _Do you smell manure or anything like that?_ ” she asks, earning a weird look from Glenn.

“ _I don’t. What are you getting at?_ ” he asks.

“ _This is a train station with no sign of a farm to raise cattle and yet there’s a ton of what looks like fresh meat cooking on the stove, you don’t find that weird?_ ” Gloria points out.

Glenn registers her words and it dawns on him that she’s right. He could probably play it off if this were some kind of meat processing plant with a large freezer to store meat but this was just a train station. Unbeknownst to the siblings, Gareth seemed to be eyeing the two as they spoke in their mother tongue, wary and curious as to what they were saying.

“Everything okay?” Maggie asks, noting their serious faces.

Glenn tightens his lips and forces a smile as he nods to Maggie, “yeah, yeah, everything’s fine.” 

Gloria gives him a look and tells him in Korean, “ _listen, when it’s your turn, ask if you can bring sister-in-law with you, I don’t trust you going in there alone._ ”

Before Glenn could give her a response, the door to the building opens and Glenn is next in line to go in. He glances at Alex who smiles at him, waiting for him to enter the building. He looks back at Gloria who gives him a disapproving look. 

“I uh… I know it’s custom for you guys to just take in one person at a time, but is it okay if I bring my wife in?” Glenn asks Gareth, heeding Gloria’s word.

Alex looks over at Gareth who smiles at him and nods, “I don’t see why not.”

Maggie furrows her brows, slightly confused at the request but goes into the building with Glenn anyway, trusting him. Gloria watches with worry as the door closes behind them and her look is catch by Gareth.

“Hey, Gloria, right?” Gareth calls out, “I know you’re worried about whether or not we’re good people, but I promise you that we are. We just want to survive, just like you.”

Gloria forces a smile on her face and nods. She doesn’t verbally answer him though as she anxiously waits for her turn. Curiosity was eating at her, were Glenn and Maggie okay? Was it really just a simple questioning or was it something more? She is about to find out as the door opens and Alex greets her with a smile. Gloria sighs and enters the building without a second thought. He leads her down a hallway and into a smaller room. The inside of the room looked just like that of a guidance counselor’s office in high school, only difference being that the desk was empty and there were no chairs. Two people were already inside the room but they looked to be guards as they stood in the corner of the room. 

“First, I’d like to ask you to put your weapons on the desk, we’re going to be doing a body search before the questioning.” Alex tells her once she’s standing in front of the desk.

Gloria lets out a breath and does as she’s told, removing her daggers from her belt along with the gun she’d taken from Joe’s men. She places them on the desk. 

“Good,” Alex says with a smile then he goes over to, “now for the body search, hope you don’t mind.”

“I’ll let you know with a kick in the face if you make me feel uncomfortable,” Gloria spits out, not liking the vibe Alex was giving her.

“Feisty,” he chuckles then begins to check her body for any additional or hidden weapons in which he did not find, “nothing, that’s good.”

Alex steps away from Gloria then he looks behind her to send one of the guards a signal. She frowns as she catches the eye signal and she tries to turn around but she’s caught by the guard. Gloria freezes when she feels a gun pointed to her back and the guard ushers her out of the room and out of the building altogether through another door. He keeps the gun pressed to her back as he brings her to a large red train car with a big white ‘A’ painted on the side. He roughly pushes her forward but keeps the gun aimed at her.

“Open the door and go in,” he tells her, “now!”

Gloria sighs and does as told, sliding the door to the train car open and stepping inside. The door closes behind her almost immediately and she lets her eyes adjust to the darkness of the train car.

“I hate to admit it… but you were right.” Glenn says somewhere in the train car.

She scoffs at that and raises her arms to feel around the place so she doesn’t run into a wall, “I’m always right.”

Once she finds the wall, she leans her back on it, “now what?”

“Figure out a way to get the hell out of here.” Maggie says, standing on Glenn’s other side. 

“And how would we do that?” Abraham asks, leaning on the opposite wall of Gloria. 

“They have to open the doors here some time, right? Keep us fed, hydrated, if they were going to kill us, they would have already.” Glenn reasons.

“They’re going to kill us…” Gloria says and she feels Glenn throw her a disappointed look although she can’t see it, “the meat they were cooking up, what do you think that was?”

“Long pork,” Eugene pipes up, “I found it bizarre, there’s no emanation of manure in the air which means no livestock. As we may have noticed this is a train terminal of sorts, and in my knowledge there is no equipment within these facilities to act as any form of preservation of meats such as a cooler or refrigerator. I believe that we have just become their livestock.”

Gloria looks at Abraham,” does he always talk like that?”

“He does.” Abraham nods. 

“Wait, so you’re saying they’re… cannibals?” Glenn says, a look of horror on his face.

“It’s smart.. Disgusting and absolutely inhumane… but smart,” Maggie says, “they set up signs for people to come to them as a lure… and we fell straight into their trap…” 

“We gotta figure out a plan to get out of here before they butcher us…” Gloria stated the obvious with a heavy sigh. 

One by one, the doors open to let in the others of their group but after that, no one from Terminus comes to check up on the group. They were all stuck in there, with no way out nor any indication of a schedule for them to try an ambush attack. The only sign of day and night was from the light that poured into the small holes and cracks of the train car. 

A full day had gone by and there was nothing they could do about their situation. The only positive to this was that none of them were dead. 

“I can’t believe it…” Gloria mutters, “we were all so busy running from the dead trying to eat us, we run straight into a stupid trap for other **people** to try and eat us.”

“That’s not helping, Gloria.” Glenn groans.

She scoffs and is about to say something else when she hears gunshots coming from nearby, “did you guys hear that?”

“That’s gunfire if I ever heard it,” Abraham says.

“Are they getting attacked?” Tara asks.

“Oh I really fucking hope so.” Gloria says as she tries to look out one of the small holes. 

The gunfire continues for a brief moment then stops completely. They all hear a voice that sounds like Gareth shouting but they aren’t able to comprehend what he was saying. Soon the door opens, blinding them all as light floods into the train car. Someone steps in, followed by three others and the door is closed again. It seems that they had just caught more people. Gloria sighs and leans on the wall again while Glenn gets up and walks towards the new people.

“Rick?” he calls, making Gloria look in the direction of the new people. 

It takes a few seconds for Gloria’s eyes to adjust to the darkness again and relief floods through her when she sees Rick and Carl, they were alive. She recognizes the woman behind Carl as well, Michonne. Gloria lets out a breath when she sees the figure behind Rick, tears well up in her eyes.

“Daryl…” she whispers quietly, as if she was scared that if she said it any louder he would disappear. 

Daryl’s eyes land on her and within a second Gloria dashes towards him, tackling him in a tight hug. His arms wrap around her body in an instant, his hand cradling her head as he presses a kiss to her forehead. She pulls away from him reluctantly and turns to look at Rick who smiles at her. 

“You’re here,” he says with a nod, then looks at the others in the train car, seemingly looking at the people he didn’t recognize.

“They’re our friends.” Maggie tells him.

“They helped save us.” Gloria adds. 

“Yeah,” Daryl says, taking Gloria’s hand in his, “and now they’re friends o’ ours.”

“For however long that’ll be,” Abraham remarks. 

“No…” Rick says, he then steps towards the door he came through, seemingly checking for any cracks or ways out, “they’re gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out.”

“Find out what?” Abraham asks, stepping towards the man.

Rick looks at Abraham, then at everyone else in the train car, “they’re fucking with the wrong people.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're at the end of Season 4! I will be posting up Season 5 tomorrow in another part of my Series Fated~! 
> 
> We're almost caught up to what I have on Tumblr ^^
> 
> Thank you all so so much for the support! It means a lot to me~! You're all so amazing ❤❤❤


End file.
